Kurdish grammar
Kurdish grammar has many inflections, with prefixes and suffixes added to roots to express grammatical relations and to form words.
Split-ergative system
[edit]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
[edit]Possession
[edit]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
[edit]| 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 | |
| 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
[edit]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
[edit]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
[edit]| Infinitive | Ends in -ín (consonant stems), -î́n (î-stems), -án (a-stems), or -û́n (û-stems). |
|---|---|
| Past participle |
|
See also
[edit]
Notes
[edit]- ^ "Welcome to Encyclopaedia Iranica".
- ^ "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) - ^ Theodora Bynon. 1979. The Ergative Construction in Kurdish. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Vol. 42, No. 2, pp. 211–224.
- ^ 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
- ^ Abstract on origins of ergativity
- ^ 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.)
- ^ 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)
- ^ Celîliyan, ʻEbasî: Ferhengî başûr: Kurdî-Kurdî-Farisî. 2004. (Page 26, 80, 85, 86, 706)
- ^ Windfuhr, Gernot: The Iranian languages. Routledge Language Family Series. 2009. Ernest N. McCarus'un makalesi. (Page 629)
- ^ http://www.royalacademy.dk/Publications/High/737_MacKenzie,%20D.pdf [bare URL PDF]
- ^ Windfuhr, Gernot: The Iranian languages. Routledge Language Family Series. 2009. Ludwig Paul. (page 551)
- ^ Aboszodə, Müəllifi-Fəxrəddin: Talıçca-Türkçe Luğət. 55 min kelimə. Bakı. 2011. Yeniden neşri. Bakü. 2015. (page 24, 210, 211, 214, 441, 501)
- ^ a b Wolfgang, Schulze: Northern Talysh. Lincom Europa. 2000. (Sayfa 35)
- ^ Bartholomae, Christian: Altiranisches Wörterbuch, Strassburg. K. J. Trübner. 1904. (page 225, 295, 660, 1303, 1718, 1844)
- ^ a b c d Windfuhr, Gernot (13 May 2013). The Iranian Languages. ISBN 9781135797034.
- ^ Windfuhr, Gernot: The Iranian languages. Routledge Language Family Series. 2009. Ernest N. McCarus. (page 629)
- ^ Windfuhr, Gernot: The Iranian languages. Routledge Language Family Series. 2009. Ludwig Paul'un makalesi. (page 551)
- ^ Aboszodə, Müəllifi-Fəxrəddin: Talıçca-Türkçe Luğət. 55 min kelimə. Bakı. 2011. Yeniden neşri. Bakü. 2015.
References
[edit]- Thackston, W. M. (2006a). Kurmanji Kurdish: A Reference Grammar with Selected Readings.
- Thackston, W. M. (2006b). Sorani Kurdish— A Reference Grammar with Selected Readings.