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Kurdish grammar

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Kurdish grammar has many inflections, with prefixes and suffixes added to roots to express grammatical relations and to form words.

Split-ergative system

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Among all modern Iranian languages, only Yaghnobi and Kurdish are ergative, with respect to both case-marking and verb-agreement.[1] There are general descriptions of ergativity in Kurdish,[2][3] as well as in specific forms of Kurdish, such as Sorani [4] and Kurmanji.[5]

Kurmanji and Sorani Kurdish have a split-ergative system. Transitive verbs show nominative/accusative marking in the present tense, and ergative marking in the past tense.[6]

Nouns

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Possession

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Ezafe is used with nouns to indicate possession. Ezafe (-y) joins the possessive noun with its possessed noun

jēgā-y pāsā = the king's place (Lit: place of king)

Ezafe is also used alongside pronouns to show possession. Ezafe (-y) joins the possessor pronoun with its possessed noun.[6]

jēgā-y min = my place (Lit: place of me)

Pronouns in various Kurdish languages and other languages for comparison

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Central Kurdish[7] Southern Kurdish[8] Kurmanji[9] Gorani[10] Zazaki[11] Talysh[12][13] Avestan[14] Parthian[15] Middle Persian[15]
no distinction of nominative and oblique
nominative
1st
person 		singular min min ez min ez az azəm az an
plural ême îme em ême ma əmə ahma- (accusative) amāh amāh
2nd
person 		singular to ti tu, ti to ti tı tvəm tu to
plural êwe îwe hûn şime şima şımə yūšma- (accusative) aşmāh aşmāh
3rd
person 		singular ew ew ew ad (masculine)
ade (feminine) 		o (masculine)
a (feminine) 		əv hva- (masculine)
hā (feminine) 		ho oy
plural ewane ewane ew / ewana adê ê əvon ? hawin oy
Oblique
Kurmanji[16] Zazaki [17] Parthian[15] Middle Persian[15] Talysh[13][18]
Oblique
accusative
min mi(n) man man mıni
te to to to tıni
wî ey ho oy əvi
wê ay ho –
-
me ma amāh amāh əməni
we şıma aşmāh aşmāh şıməni
wan inan hawin awêşān əvoni

Verbs

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Because the stress is distinctive in Kurdish, the acute diacritics (á) are used to denote the stressed syllables (normally not used in Kurdish) (Thackston 2006a).

General description

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Kurdish verbs agree with their subjects in person and number. They have the following major characteristics:

  • Verbs have two stems: present and past.
  • Present stems can be simple or secondary.
  • Simple tenses are formed by the addition of personal endings wo stems.
  • Secondary stems consist of a root + suffixes that indicate transitivity, intransitivity, and causativity.
  • There are 3 tenses: present, past, and future.
  • There are 2 voices: active and passive.
  • There are 2 aspects: imperfective and perfective. Aspect is as important as tense.
  • There are 4 moods: indicative, conditional, imperative, and potential.
  • Past tense transitive sentences are formed as ergative constructions, i.e., transitive verbs in the past tense agree with the object rather than the subject of the sentence.

Non-finite endings

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Infinitive Ends in -ín (consonant stems), -î́n (î-stems), -án (a-stems), or -û́n (û-stems).
Past participle
  • Ends in -î when the stem ends in consonants or -î (hatin → hatî "come").
  • Ends in -yî when the stem ends in -a or -û (mán → máyî "remained").

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ "Welcome to Encyclopaedia Iranica".
  2. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-01-29. Retrieved 2013-07-30.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. ^ Theodora Bynon. 1979. The Ergative Construction in Kurdish. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Vol. 42, No. 2, pp. 211–224.
  4. ^ John Haiman. Ergativity in Sorani Kurdish. Essais de typologie et de linguistique générale : mélanges offerts à Denis Creissels. Ed. Franck Florici et al. Lyon: ENS Editions, 2010. 243–250
  5. ^ Abstract on origins of ergativity
  6. ^ a b Friend, Robyn C. 1985. Some Syntactic and Morphological Features of Suleimaniye Kurdish. Ann Arbor: UMI. (Doctoral dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles; 240pp.)
  7. ^ Thackston, W. M.: http://fas.harvard.edu/~iranian/Sorani/ Archived 2015-05-10 at the Wayback Machine – Sorani Kurdish. Iranian Studies at Harvard University. 2006. (Page 27)
  8. ^ Celîliyan, ʻEbasî: Ferhengî başûr: Kurdî-Kurdî-Farisî. 2004. (Page 26, 80, 85, 86, 706)
  9. ^ Windfuhr, Gernot: The Iranian languages. Routledge Language Family Series. 2009. Ernest N. McCarus'un makalesi. (Page 629)
  10. ^ http://www.royalacademy.dk/Publications/High/737_MacKenzie,%20D.pdf [bare URL PDF]
  11. ^ Windfuhr, Gernot: The Iranian languages. Routledge Language Family Series. 2009. Ludwig Paul. (page 551)
  12. ^ Aboszodə, Müəllifi-Fəxrəddin: Talıçca-Türkçe Luğət. 55 min kelimə. Bakı. 2011. Yeniden neşri. Bakü. 2015. (page 24, 210, 211, 214, 441, 501)
  13. ^ a b Wolfgang, Schulze: Northern Talysh. Lincom Europa. 2000. (Sayfa 35)
  14. ^ Bartholomae, Christian: Altiranisches Wörterbuch, Strassburg. K. J. Trübner. 1904. (page 225, 295, 660, 1303, 1718, 1844)
  15. ^ a b c d Windfuhr, Gernot (13 May 2013). The Iranian Languages. ISBN 9781135797034.
  16. ^ Windfuhr, Gernot: The Iranian languages. Routledge Language Family Series. 2009. Ernest N. McCarus. (page 629)
  17. ^ Windfuhr, Gernot: The Iranian languages. Routledge Language Family Series. 2009. Ludwig Paul'un makalesi. (page 551)
  18. ^ Aboszodə, Müəllifi-Fəxrəddin: Talıçca-Türkçe Luğət. 55 min kelimə. Bakı. 2011. Yeniden neşri. Bakü. 2015.

References

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