Saturday, July 23, 2011

DIR / T - to have somebody do something

The days are hot in Baku in July. It's hard to work up enough energy to post when the temperatures soar to 36 and beyond. Easier to lounge on the balcony with a good book, hoping for the relief of a light breeze and listening to the sounds from the street. One hawker goes by late every morning calling "moruq, çiyələk, marina." The first is raspberries, the second strawberries, and the third I have no idea. It sounds like marina, but perhaps I've got it wrong. Maybe it's Russian? (I've been told since that it is malina - Russian for moruq.) If I weren't so lazy I would go down and ask him to sell me some strawberries!* (See if I have got this right.)

Anyway, a short posting about these kind of verbs...

You can pretty much take any verb in Azerbaijani it seems and change the agency or the doer of the action. One simply adds -dir to the verb root for verbs ending in a consonant and -t after roots ending with a vowel.

For example,

You can make a dress or have someone make a dress for you.
tikmək = to sew / tikdirmək = to have somebody sew

Mən paltar tikmişəm. Mən paltar tikdirmişəm. - I made a dress. I had a dress made.

You can clean your apartment, or you can have somebody clean it for you.
təmizləmək = to clean / təmizlətmək = to have somebody clean

Mən mənzil təmizləyirəm. Mən mənzil təmizlətirəm. - I clean the apartment. I am having the apartment cleaned.

* Əgər mən çox tənbəl olmasam, mən balkondan gedərəm və mənə çiyələk satdırayaram.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Dear Prof, understanding that my response is a 7 years late, but it's a pleasure to read your posts about my mother tonque. It's very unfortunate and a tragedy that I have not seen so much attention to Azerbaijani language in years even from Azerbaijanis. If you are still willing to practice Azerbaijani i would gladly help you in doing so.

The rigjt way of saying the sentence as you meant would be: mən tənbəl olmasaydım, balkondan gedərək mənə çiyələk satmağı istiyərdim. Still doesn't sound very Azerbaijani though ))))