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
Among all 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 Kurmanjî.[5]
Sorani Kurdish has a split-ergative system. Transitive verbs show nominative/accusative marking in the present tense, and ergative marking in the past tense.[6]
Nouns
Summary
- A Kurdish noun in the absolute state, in other words without any ending of any kind, gives a generic sense of the noun.
- It is also the “lexical” form of the noun, i.e. the form in which a noun is given in a vocabulary list or dictionary.
- Nouns are declined in four cases: nominative, oblique, construct (or ezafe) and vocative.
- Nouns can be simple or compound.
- Any unmodified noun in Kurdish may be generic, i.e., it can refer to one or more than one items. Plural is not obligatory when more than one item are implied.
- For most nouns the plural is formed through adding a suffix, some are formed through irregular endings.
- There are 3 grammatical genders: feminine, masculine and neutral.
- Definiteness is not formally marked in Kurmanji. In Sorani nouns may be marked with a definite marker (-ēk) or an indefinite marker (aka).
- Adjectives agree with the nouns they modify in number and case.
- Personal pronouns are marked for number and person (1st, 2nd, 3rd). They can be free-standing or take the form of clitics. Free-standing forms are used for emphasis.
| Sing. M. | Sing. F | Plur. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oblique | -î | -ê | -an |
| Construct | -ê | -a | -ên/êt |
| Vocative | -o | -ê | -no/ine |
| Indefinite | -ek- | -ek- | -anek |
| Definite | -eke- | -eke- | -ekan |
Possession
Ezafe is used with nouns to indicate possession. Ezafe (-y) joins the possessive noun with it's 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 it's possessed noun.[7]
jēgā-y min = my place (Lit: place of me)
Pronouns
Kurmanji Kurdish
Kurmanji uses two types of personal pronouns.
| Number | Singular | Plural | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case | NOM. | OBL | NOM. | OBL. | ||||
| normal | suffix | normal | suffix | normal | suffix | normal | suffix | |
| 1st | Ez | -(i)m | Min | -(i)m | Em | -(i)n | (ê)Me | -man/(i)n |
| 2nd | Tu | -î | Te | (i)t/u | Hun | (i)n | (ê)We | -tan/u |
| 3rd | Ew | -e | Wê (FEM.) Wî (MASC.) | î/y | Ew | (i)n | (e)Wan | -yan |
The ez forms (NOM.) are used as subjects in the present and future tenses. They are also used as subjects in past tenses when the verb is an intransitive one. They are used as objects in past tenses when employed with a transitive verb.
The min forms (OBL.) are used with any preposition or postposition. They are also employed as objects in present and future tenses, but as subjects of the transitive verbs in past tenses.
Kurmanji has lost the suffixes for OBL pronouns, whereas Sorani has lost nominative normal pronouns.
Sorani Kurdish
Sorani personal pronouns have three persons and both singular and plural form. Gender is not marked.
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | min | ēma |
| 2nd | tō | ēwa |
| 3rd | aw | awān |
Adjectives
In Sorani, adjectives follow the head noun and may be joined by 'ezafe' or an open compound structure. The following example shows the Ezafe construction:
pyāw-ī čak = a good fellow (Lit: man of good)
Demonstrative
Demonstrative pronouns when followed by postpositions (attached to the nouns) become demonstrative adjectives.
| Case | NOM. SING. | NOM. PLUR. | OBL. SING. | OBL. PLUR. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Distance | MASC. | FEM. | |||
| near | ev ... a | ev ... ana | vî ... î | vê ... ê | van ... an |
| far | ew ... a | ew ... ana | wî ... î | wê ... ê | wan ... an |
| too far | how ... a | how ... ana | how ... a | how ... a | how ... ana |
As demonstrative adjectives, Sorani Kurdish does not use OBL forms (though for demonstrative pronouns it does use OBL. plural forms); neither Kurmanji uses nominative plural forms.
Prepositions and postpositions
| Preposition | postposition | absolute form | meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Li/Le | da/de & ra/re & (e)we/ve | lê | at, of, from |
| Ji | ra/re | jê | from |
| bo /jibo | for | ||
| -e | -ê | to, towards | |
| Di/de | da/de | tê da/de | in |
| be/bi | pê | to, by | |
| be/bi | (e)we/ve | pê we | with |
Verbs
General description
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 to the two 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.
Present and future
Present and future tenses for the verb zanîn ( to know).
| Person | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tenses | Intransitive & transitive | |||
| Present | dizanim | dizanî | dizane | dizanin |
| Subjunctive present | bizanim | bizanî | bizane | bizanin |
| Future | -ê bizanim | -ê bizanî | -ê bizane | -ê bizanin |
Past tenses for intransitive verb of hatin (to come).
| Person | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intransitive past | ||||
| Simple past | hatim | hatî | hat | hatin |
| Imperfective preterite | dihatim | dihatî | dihat | dihatin |
| Perfect | hatime | hatiyî | hatiye | hatine |
| Pluperfect | hatibûm | hatibûy(î) | hatibû | hatibûn |
| Subjunctive preterite | hatibim | hatibî | hatibe | hatibin |
| Past Conditional | hatibama | hatibay(î) | hatiba | hatibana |
If a past transitive verb accepts a nominative personal suffix, it agrees with the object of the sentence. Transitive past verbs in Sorani have OBL connected/dependent(not independent) personal pronouns on the object, if object is not mentioned they are on prefix or first part of the verb if the verb was compound, if there were not any prefix so they will be on the same place as th NOM ones. OBL connected pronouns: -m, -t, -y, -man, -tan, -yan.
personal suffixes (in contrast to intransitive verbs which always accept NOM. personal suffixes).
Word order
The normal word order in Kurdish is Subject-Object-Verb (S-O-V). Modifiers follow the nouns they modify.
See also
Notes
- ↑ http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ergative-construction
- ↑ http://kurdishacademy.org/sites/default/files/KurdAlignment_0.pdf
- ↑ 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
- ↑ Friend, Robyn C. 1985. Some Syntactic and Morphological Features of Suleimaniye Kurdish. Ann Arbor: UMI. (Doctoral dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles; 240pp.)
- ↑ Friend, Robyn C. 1985. Some Syntactic and Morphological Features of Suleimaniye Kurdish. Ann Arbor: UMI. (Doctoral dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles; 240pp.)
References
- W. M. Thackston (2006) Kurmanji Kurdish: A Reference Grammar with Selected Readings
- W. M. Thackston (2006) Sorani Kurdish— A Reference Grammar with Selected Readings