Perfective Present Imperative

The perfective present imperative tense describes a single occurrence in present or future, which is based on a command or request (→ imperative mood). This Persian tense is called “present imperative” in other grammar references but it has perfective aspect and contrasts with imperfective present imperative.

Formation

The perfective present imperative tense is formed according to the following pattern:

Conjugation

Simple verbs

• Verb: نوشتن (“neveštan”; to write)
• Present stem: نویس (“nevis”)

Compound verbs

• Verb: کار کردن (“kâr kardan”; to work)
• Preverb: کار (“kâr”)
• Present stem: کن (“kon”)

Special cases

The imperative ending for second-person singular is a null morpheme i.e. no ending is added to the present stem. This adds an additional case to the special cases of perfective present subjunctive: when the present stem ends in “-av”, it changes to “-ow” for second-person singular. In addition, particularly in spoken Persian, the imperative prefix “be-” changes to “bo-” when “-ow” is the first or sole vowel of the present stem.

But in šenidan, the first vowel of the present stem (šenav) is not “o”. So, “be-” does not change to “bo-”:

In compound verbs, particularly when the preverb contains the words بر (“bar”) or در (“dar”), the prefix ب is usually omitted.

The verb بودن (“budan”; to be) forms its imperative present using the stem باش (bâš). Additionally, it does not take the prefix ب:

The verb داشتن (“dâštan”; to have) is not normally conjugated in perfective present imperative and instead, its present perfect imperative form is used. This also applies to compound verbs retaining the sense of “to have”. The following table compares بر داشتن (“bar dâštan”; to pick up) with دوست داشتن (“dust dâštan”; literally: to have a feeling of liking or love). The verb دوست داشتن is normally conjugated in present perfect imperative even though it is possible to conjugate it in perfective present imperative.

Imperative prefix

The main pronunciation of the imperative prefix ب is “be” but it can change to “bi” or “bo” depending on the present stem. When the present stem begins with any vowels but “i”, the epenthetic consonant ی (“y”) is added between the prefix and the vowel. Additionally, “be” changes to “bi”. This case also applies to when the present stem begins with the consonant y.

But when the present stem begins with “i”, the epenthetic consonant is a glottal stop and as a result, its conjugation follows the general pattern:

In spoken Persian, “be” changes to “bo” when the present stem begins with a consonant and the vowel “o”, most notably خوردن (“xordan”), کشتن (koštan) and کردن (“kardan”):

Negative conjugation

In Classical Persian, ن (“na-”) is the negation particle for indicative mood and م (“ma-”) is the negation particle for imperative and optative moods. In Modern Persian, ن (“na-”) has become the general negation particle and م (“ma-”) is restricted to literary language. However, even in literary language, it is common to use ن (“na-”) for imperative mood.

The negative form of the perfective present imperative tense is constructed by replacing the prefix ب with ن (“na-”).

As an example, رفتن is conjugated so in Classical Persian and literary language:

Epenthetic consonant

When the present stem begins with any vowels but “i”, an epenthetic consonant ی (“y”) is added after “na-”.

Examples