Urdu: ذراسا، ذاسی

    • ذرا سا پانی، نمک، وغیرہ - مذکّر الفاظ
    ذرا سی مرچ، پیاز، وغیرہ - مؤنّث الفاظ     ​
     
    Actually, these are two words:
    1. za[r]raa - originally a noun "particle" , whence a adjective " little" and an adverb "a little" .
    2. saa - a particle of similarity ; i.e. zarraa saa 'very small ' . The particle "saa" changes as a postposition "kaa" , i.e. saa, sii, se .
    Example with 'se':
    tab tum bilkul zaraa se the. Then you were very small.
     
    Alexu said:
    Actually, these are two words:
    1. za[r]raa - originally a noun "particle" , whence a adjective " little" and an adverb "a little" .
    2. saa - a particle of similarity ; i.e. zarraa saa 'very small ' . The particle "saa" changes as a postposition "kaa" , i.e. saa, sii, se .
    Example with 'se':
    tab tum bilkul zaraa se the. Then you were very small.
    Click to expand...
    Thanks. I had not come across ذرا سے before.
     
    Alexu said:
    Actually, these are two words:
    1. za[r]raa - originally a noun "particle" , whence a adjective " little" and an adverb "a little" .
    2. saa - a particle of similarity ; i.e. zarraa saa 'very small ' . The particle "saa" changes as a postposition "kaa" , i.e. saa, sii, se .
    Example with 'se':
    tab tum bilkul zaraa se the. Then you were very small.
    Click to expand...
    Yes, you are right. These are two words.

    1. Actually the "original" word is ذَرَّہ meaning "particle" and as such this word is also used in Urdu, the plural being ذَرّے and ذَرَّات.

    ذَرا means a small amount/ a little

    2. zaraa saa does not always mean "very small" but can, depending on context. It's more like "smallish".
     
    Gop said:
    Thanks. I had not come across ذرا سے before.
    Click to expand...

    It's just the inflected form of "saa".

    From @Alexu SaaHib's example...

    tuu zaraa saa to hai. ziyaadah akaR dikhaane kii zaruurat bahiiN!

    aap zaraa se idhar ko sarak jaa'ie taa kih maiN is Hasiinah ke pahluu meN baiTh sakuuN! :)

    Gham-i-firaaq meN ho daaGh is qadr betaab

    zaraa se ranj meN jaaN aap kii nikaltii hai

    daaGh Dihlavii
     
    Gop said:
    Always followed by a noun, masculine or feminine?
    Click to expand...
    جی۔ کیا دوران مطالعہ آپ کو کوئی مخصوص مثال نظر آئی تھی؟​
     
    Qureshpor said:
    zaraa saa does not always mean "very small" but can, depending on context. It's more like "smallish".
    Click to expand...
    This is coherent with the rest of the uses of -saa. But grammar books insist on that, when -saa is used alongside baRaa, chhoTaa, bahut, etc. it has an intensive, rather than relativizing value.

    What is the mental process or idiomatic evolution that allows something to mean both "smallish" and "very small"?
    Maybe saying that something is "quite" small, like in English? That it is small "to a considerable amount"?
     
    MonsieurGonzalito said:
    This is coherent with the rest of the uses of -saa. But grammar books insist on that, when -saa is used alongside baRaa, chhoTaa, bahut, etc. it has an intensive, rather than relativizing value.
    Click to expand...
    مرتا ہُوں خامُشی پر، یہ آرزو ہے میری
    دامن میں کوہ کے اِک چھوٹا سا جھونپڑا ہو

    اقبال

    میرے خیال میں یہاں چھوٹا سا کے معنی بہت چھوٹا کے نہیں بلکہ چھوٹی نوعیّت کے جھونپڑے کے ہیں۔

    کہانی میں چھوٹا سا کردار ہے
    ہمارا مگر ایک مِعیار ہے

    شکیل جمالی

    ​
     
    Last edited:
    Dinraat said:
    Sahih ya ghalat, hamare haaN piyaz ke liye bhi zara saa istemaal kiya jaata hai
    Click to expand...
    پلیٹس، کتابستان، فرہنگِ آصفیّہ اور نوراللغات وغیرہ میں پیاز مؤنث ہی ہے لیکن اگر آپ اِس بات کا ذکر نہ کرتے تو میں بھی پیاز کو مُذکّر ہی سمجھے بیٹھا تھا۔ یہ الگ بات ہے کہ میرا تعلّق مکتبِ پنجاب سے ہے۔ لہٰذا ہو سکتا ہے میری سوچ کا منبع میرا مکتب ہو۔ :)
     
    Dinraat said:
    Sahih ya ghalat, hamare haaN piyaz ke liye bhi zara saa istemaal kiya jaata hai
    Click to expand...
    Qureshpor said:
    پلیٹس، کتابستان، فرہنگِ آصفیّہ اور نوراللغات وغیرہ میں پیاز مؤنث ہی ہے لیکن اگر آپ اِس بات کا ذکر نہ کرتے تو میں بھی پیاز کو مُذکّر ہی سمجھے بیٹھا تھا۔ یہ الگ بات ہے کہ میرا تعلّق مکتبِ پنجاب سے ہے۔ لہٰذا ہو سکتا ہے میری سوچ کا منبع میرا مکتب ہو۔
    Click to expand...
    جی، میں اس استعمال سے واقف ہوں۔ (دن رات صاحب، آپ کو فورم میں مدّت بعد دیکھ کر اچھا لگا۔)​
     
    I wouldn't have replied hadn't you posed the question. In this sentence both تھوڑا سا and ذرا سا perform an adverbial function, as aevynn SaaHib has already said, and both exhibit the direct/uninflected "case" in ا_. All I wanted was to illustrate my response to your question by analogy, that is to say in this sentence the inflected form, ***وہ تھوڑے سے مسکرائی or وہ ***ذرا سے مسکرائی۔, would be totally out of place. However I'm certain if you look for it you'll find وہ "تھوڑی سی" مسکرائی, too.
     
    Gop said:
    Do ذرا سا مسکرایا and ذرا سے مسکرائے exist too?
    Click to expand...
    The adverb zaraa saa usually (in my experience) occurs with invariable -aa morphology (zaraa saa muskuraa'e, zaraa saa muskuraa'ii) but yes, as @marrish jii has pointed out, it can sometimes also agree with the subject (zaraa se muskuraa'e, zaraa sii muskuraa'ii). Of course, zaraa saa muskuraayaa is totally fine under both of those agreement paradigms :)

    Alexu said:
    Not "zaraa se"? ( With adverbs the form 'se' is usually used.. )
    Click to expand...
    Are you thinking of things like dhiire se, jaldii se, ek_dam se, chupke se etc...? If so, I think those are probably examples of the postposition se, rather than the adjective-like saa that occurs in zaraa saa taking on oblique morphology. I guess the only syntactic reason I can currently come up with to justify this is precisely the phenomenon under discussion: when other adjective-like words are used adverbially (eg, itnaa), they behave just like zaraa saa in the sense that they often exhibit invariable -aa morphology (eg, itnaa muskuraa'ii) and might sometimes agree with the subject (eg, itnii muskuraa'ii), while invariable oblique morphology (eg, *itne muskuraa'ii) sounds decidedly ungrammatical. So chupke se, etc, should probably be treated as an example of the postposition se and not the adjective-like saa taking on oblique morphology.
     
    aevynn said:
    The adverb zaraa saa usually (in my experience) occurs with invariable -aa morphology (zaraa saa muskuraa'e, zaraa saa muskuraa'ii) but yes, as @marrish jii has pointed out, it can sometimes also agree with the subject (zaraa se muskuraa'e, zaraa sii muskuraa'ii). Of course, zaraa saa muskuraayaa is totally fine under both of those agreement paradigms :)
    Click to expand...
    Thank you very much for this clarification, aevynn jii.
     
    aevynn said:
    Are you thinking of things like dhiire se, jaldii se, ek_dam se, chupke se etc...? If so, I think those are probably examples of the postposition se, rather than the adjective-like saa that occurs in zaraa saa taking on oblique morphology. I guess the only syntactic reason I can currently come up with to justify this is precisely the phenomenon under discussion: when other adjective-like words are used adverbially (eg, itnaa), they behave just like zaraa saa in the sense that they often exhibit invariable -aa morphology (eg, itnaa muskuraa'ii) and might sometimes agree with the subject (eg, itnii muskuraa'ii), while invariable oblique morphology (eg, *itne muskuraa'ii) sounds decidedly ungrammatical. So chupke se, etc, should probably be treated as an example of the postposition se and not the adjective-like saa taking on oblique morphology.
    Click to expand...
    In my opinion, there are different "se" ... "jaldii" is an abstract noun and without postposition "se" you cannot use it in the meaning of an adverb. "ek dam" is a whole phrase in the meaning of the adverb, i.e. a stable phrase - and the postposition "se" can be omitted here or replaced by postposition "meN". But in "dhiire" and "chupke", in my opinion, just the particle "se" - after all, you can say just "dhiire" and "chupke" - then what is the meaning of "se", if this is an excuse?
    In addition, is it possible to use postpositions with adjectives at all without first turning the latter into nouns?
    ( But note - you can say "dhiiraa saa", "chupkaa saa" .... )
     
    Last edited:
    Alexu said:
    Not "zaraa se"? ( With adverbs the form 'se' is usually used.. )
    Click to expand...
    ​
    Alexu said:
    I know about "thoRaa saa"... and I didn't meet "zaraa saa" as an adverb - that's why I asked.
    Click to expand...

    جی ہاں، ذرا سے کا وجود ہے۔

    مثال کے طور پر۔۔۔۔

    ذرا سےمیں۔۔۔یعنی معمولی بات پر، معمولی حرکت پر

    اردو لُغت سے یہ مثالیں ملاحظہ فرمائیے۔

    بات تو سنو۔ تم ذرا سے میں بگڑ جاتے ہو۔

    رکشا کر لو، پیدل نہ جاؤ۔ ذرا سے میں تو ہانپنے لگتے ہو۔
    ​
     
    Last edited:
    Alexu said:
    In my opinion, there are different "se" ... "jaldii" is an abstract noun and without postposition "se" you cannot use it in the meaning of an adverb. "ek dam" is a whole phrase in the meaning of the adverb, i.e. a stable phrase - and the postposition "se" can be omitted here or replaced by postposition "meN". But in "dhiire" and "chupke", in my opinion, just the particle "se" - after all, you can say just "dhiire" and "chupke" - then what is the meaning of "se", if this is an excuse?
    In addition, is it possible to use postpositions with adjectives at all without first turning the latter into nouns?
    ( But note - you can say "dhiiraa saa", "chupkaa saa" .... )
    Click to expand...
    Thank you for these comments! :) They have been thought-provoking, and I realize that I was lumping together disparate examples.

    As you know, appending the postposition se to a noun in order to form an adverbial phrase is a very general and productive paradigm in the grammar (be_zaarii se, shaa'iraanA shaa3iraanA andaaz se, aasaanii se, xuub_Suuratii se, 3ajiib Dhang se, ...), and jaldii se clearly fits into that paradigm perfectly. My suspicion is that this same paradigm was at work when people first began saying ek dam se (roughly literally, ie, "in one breath") -- and then this started becoming very common as a fixed adverbial phrase with an idiomatic meaning and eventually the postposition se began to be dropped. I don't have any historical data in support of this hypothesis, but it feels like a very natural evolution, and I can at least point out that the postposition se is in fact dropped in other similar and common adverbial phrases: for example, the adverbial phrase jaldii se, which we just analyzed as a noun followed by a postposition se, can in fact be reduced further to an adverb jaldii (as in, jaldii aa'o!). In short, I still think that jaldii se and ek_dam se feature the postposition se.

    That being said, I see your point with respect to dhiire se and chupke se and you might be right that these are etymologically obliques of adjectival phrases like "dhiiraa saa" or "chupkaa saa." (Worth noting is that the adjective dhiiraa is no longer current in the modern language, and chupkaa, while current, is definitely less common than its adverbial derivatives like chupke se or chupke chupke.)
     
    Last edited:
    aevynn said:
    (be_zaarii se, shaa'iraanA andaaz se, aasaanii se, xuub_Suuratii se, 3ajiib Dhang se
    Click to expand...
    shaa3iraanah :)
    aevynn said:
    Worth noting is that the adjective dhiiraa is no longer current in the modern language, and chupkaa, while current, is definitely less common than its adverbial derivatives like chupke se or chupke chupke.)
    Click to expand...
    Still alive in Urdu as in دھیرا کام رحمانی شِتاب کام شیطانی

    دھیرا سا جھٹکا

    https://www.express.pk/story/1641004/268/ (para 4 line 7)
     
    Alfaaz said:
    جی۔ کیا دوران مطالعہ آپ کو کوئی مخصوص مثال نظر آئی تھی؟​
    Click to expand...
    Alfaaz SaaHib, here is the type of example I come across.
    نوراں یہ سن کر ذراسی پریشان تو ہوئ
     
    Gop said:
    Alfaaz SaaHib, here is the type of example I come across.
    نوراں یہ سن کر ذراسی پریشان تو ہوئ
    Click to expand...
    مثال پیش کرنے کے لیے شکریہ۔ aevynn صاحب کی پوسٹ ۱۵ اور دیگر ارکان کی بعد ازاں ہونے والی گفتگو/پیش کردہ نکات سے متّفق ہوں۔​
     
    • Thank you!
    Reactions: Gop
    You must log in or register to reply here.
    Back
    Top