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 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 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 in Kurmanji are declined in four cases: nominative, oblique, construct (or ezafe) and vocative. The distinction of nominative and oblique doesn't exist in Sorani.
  • Nouns in Sorani 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 in Sorani nouns the plural is formed through adding a suffix, some are formed through irregular endings. For Kurmanji, the plural suffix doesn't exist for nominative case, plural is marked by verbs.
  • There are 3 grammatical genders in Kurmanji: feminine, masculine and neuter. Sorani has no grammatical gender. Languages like Zazaki and Hawramani have likewise 3 grammatical genders.
  • Definiteness is not formally marked in Kurmanji. In Sorani nouns may be marked with a definite marker (-aka) or an indefinite marker (-ēk).
  • 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.
Kurmanji
Sing. M.Sing. FPlur.
Oblique -î-ê-an
Construct -ê-a-ên/êt
Vocative -o-ê-no/ine
Sorani
Sing. Plur.
Indefinite -êk-
Definite -eke- -ekan

Possession

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.[7]

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

Pronouns in various Kurdish languages and other languages for comparison
Central Kurdish[8] Southern Kurdish[9] Modern Persian Kurmanji[10] Gorani[11] Zazaki[12] Talysh[13][14] Avestan[15] Parthian[16] Middle Persian[16]
no distinction of nominative and oblique
nominative

1. person singular

 min min man ez min ez az azəm az an
2. person singular to ti to tu, ti to ti tı tvəm tu to
3. person singular ew ew ū, ān ew ad (masculine), ade (feminine) o (masculine), a (feminine) əv hva- (masculine)

hā (feminine)

 ho oy
1. person plural ême îme mā em ême ma əmə ahma- (accusative) amāh amāh
2. person plural êwe îwe şomā hûn şime şima şımə yūšma- (accusative) aşmāh aşmāh
3. person plural ewane ewane işān, inhā ew / ewana adê ê əvon ? hawin oy

Oblique

Kurmanji[17] Zazaki [18] Parthian[16][19] Middle Persian[19] Talysh[20][21]
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

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.

CaseNOM. SING.NOM. PLUR.OBL. SING.OBL. PLUR.
DistanceMASC.FEM.
nearev ... hanev ... anavî ... îvê ... êvan ... an
farew ... hanew ... anawî ... îwê ... êwan ... an

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

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).

Person1st2nd3rdPlural
TensesIntransitive & transitive
Present dizanimdizanîdizanedizanin
Subjunctive present bizanimbizanîbizanebizanin
Future -ê bizanim-ê bizanî-ê bizane-ê bizanin

Past tenses for intransitive verb of hatin (to come).

Person1st2nd3rdPlural
Intransitive past
Simple past hatimhatîhathatin
Imperfective preterite dihatimdihatîdihatdihatin
Perfect hatimehatiyîhatiyehatine
Pluperfect hatibûmhatibûy(î)hatibûhatibûn
Subjunctive preterite hatibimhatibîhatibehatibin
Past Conditional hatibamahatibay(î)hatibahatibana

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.

Word order

The normal word order in Kurdish is Subject-Object-Verb (S-O-V). Modifiers follow the nouns they modify.

gollark: `rsp`
gollark: Just use more registers?
gollark: x86 has many registers.
gollark: PotatOS does not, exactly, *have* syscalls.
gollark: There should be an "install potatOS" syscall.

See also

Notes
  1. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ergative-construction
  2. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-01-29. Retrieved 2013-07-30.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. 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. Friend, Robyn C. 1985. Some Syntactic and Morphological Features of Suleimaniye Kurdish. Ann Arbor: UMI. (Doctoral dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles; 240pp.)
  8. Thackston, W. M.: http://fas.harvard.edu/~iranian/Sorani/ - Sorani Kurdish. Iranian Studies at Harvard University. 2006. (Page 27)
  9. Celîliyan, ʻEbasî: Ferhengî başûr: Kurdî-Kurdî-Farisî. 2004. (Page 26, 80, 85, 86, 706)
  10. Windfuhr, Gernot: The Iranian languages. Routledge Language Family Series. 2009. Ernest N. McCarus'un makalesi. (Page 629)
  11. http://www.royalacademy.dk/Publications/High/737_MacKenzie,%20D.pdf
  12. Windfuhr, Gernot: The Iranian languages. Routledge Language Family Series. 2009. Ludwig Paul. (page 551)
  13. Aboszodə, Müəllifi-Fəxrəddin: Talıçca-Türkçe Luğət. 55 min kelimə. Bakı. 2011. Yeniden neşri. Bakü. 2015. (page 24, 210, 211, 214, 441, 501)
  14. Wolfgang, Schulze: Northern Talysh. Lincom Europa. 2000. (Sayfa 35)
  15. Bartholomae, Christian: Altiranisches Wörterbuch, Strassburg. K. J. Trübner. 1904. (page 225, 295, 660, 1303, 1718, 1844)
  16. Windfuhr, Gernot (13 May 2013). The Iranian Languages. ISBN 9781135797034.
  17. Windfuhr, Gernot: The Iranian languages. Routledge Language Family Series. 2009. Ernest N. McCarus. (page 629)
  18. Windfuhr, Gernot: The Iranian languages. Routledge Language Family Series. 2009. Ludwig Paul'un makalesi. (page 551)
  19. Windfuhr, Gernot (13 May 2013). The Iranian Languages. ISBN 9781135797034.
  20. Wolfgang, Schulze: Northern Talysh. Lincom Europa. 2000. (Sayfa 35)
  21. Aboszodə, Müəllifi-Fəxrəddin: Talıçca-Türkçe Luğət. 55 min kelimə. Bakı. 2011. Yeniden neşri. Bakü. 2015.

References
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