In this article, “reduplication” is studied in Hawrami language. The data of the research is obtained in a fieldwork and in conversation with the speakers of a variety of Hawrami called „Hawrami-e Takht“ (Hawrami of Takht), which is spoken in a number of villages in Sarvabad county of Kurdistan province in Iran. The main goal of the research is understanding functions of reduplication in Hawrami, and also to know the differences of functions of this phenomenon in that language in comparison to other Iranian languages, namely Persian. The analyses and studies of the research indicate that “complete” and “incomplete” reduplication in Hawrami have various manifestations, but complete reduplication of verbs seems special to Hawrami, and no parallel can be found for it in Persian. In addition, examination of some constructions resulting from incomplete reduplication in Hawrami, shows that inflectional sign of grammatical gender, which in its absolute form, appears in feminine gender, is lost or appears in a different way in the construction resulting from reduplication. Regarding some parts of the data and analyses of the research, it is possible to say that this research also confirms that reduplication has similar functions and mechanisms in human languages.
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Zazakî de Zayend
Abstract
Languages have different features. These features make languages different from each other. Languages in the Indo-European language family have some features that other language families do not. One of them is gender. Even though gender has disappeared in languages such as Soranca and Persian, it continues to exist in Zazaki and Kurmanji. Gender is one of the basic features of languages and consists of two parts. Natural sex is naturally found in names. Natural sex is classified as feminine and masculine; It consists of prefixes and suffixes. It expresses man- and dele- in prefixes. It is not difficult to determine natural sex. This type of gender is determined by whether the words are masculine or feminine. The second part of gender is gramatical gender. It is difficult to determine the grammatical gender. This difficulty arises from the determination of the sex of the words. There is no consensus in grammatical gender in zazaki. The gender of the words varies from region to region. Although there is no problem in gramatical gender in everyday language, the gender of the word in written language is a problem for the author. In this study, the sexes of the words in Zazaki language are divided into two as natural gender and gramatical gender. Then, natural gender is explained with examples, prefixes and suffixes. There are some basic features in gramatical gender. In this study, these rules and features will be explained and examples of books, dictionaries and folkloric materials will be given. The purpose of this study is to explain gender in Zazaki, to determine the rules for determining the gender in words. The words entered into Zazaki from other languages were examined in this study in terms of gender. In this study, it has been given importance to use folkloric texts. Dictionaries that reflect local sayings are important sources for this study.
Asymmetries in Kurmanji morphosyntax
The current paper aims to investigate diferent morphosyntactic realization of the constituents (case vs. adposition) and their linear ordering (preverbal vs. postverbal) in a Kurmanji clause through an event structure analysis. Based on the data from Muş Kurmanji (MK), it discusses that there is a relation between the morphological form of the constituents and their status as encoded in the verb’s meaning in MK; that is, structural participants are realized with case morphology while constant participants are introduced with adpositions. It further argues that the reason why MK makes a distinction in the linear ordering of structural participants is indeed a word-order property (VG) retained from proto-Kurdish and further constrained by the morphosyntactic properties of Kurmanji
Circumpositions as an areal response
This paper proposes that the potential conflict arising from the areal distribution of a right-branching (VO) pattern encountering the area of a left-branching (OV) pattern is often resolved by the creation of an intersection zone which accommodates to both patterns by a simultaneous fluctuation between, or a merger of, the two patterns. The discussion is restricted here both in domain (adpositions) and area (the Middle East). Languages of this area group into three adpositional zones: postpositional, prepositional, and an intersection zone of mixed typology. The latter exhibits A) a split pattern, with both prepositions and postpositions; B) a merger of the two types into one hybridized pattern framing the head (circumpositions); or C) an assortment of patterns (prepositions, postpositions, circumpositions, and doublets or alternating forms). I also demonstrate that in the areas sandwiched between, and partially overlapping with, the postpositional zone (Turkic, Armenian, Caucasian, Indic) and the prepositional zone (Semitic), we find Iranian languages that are postpositional in the north, prepositional in the south, and of mixed adpositional typology in the central areas. In the east, we also find mixed typology in Nuristani languages.
Alignment change in Iranian languages: A Construction Grammar approach
The Iranian languages, due to their exceptional time-depth of attestation, constitute one of the very few instances where a shift from accusative alignment to split-ergativity is actually documented. Yet remarkably, within historical syntax, the Iranian case has received only very superficial coverage. This book provides the first in-depth treatment of alignment change in Iranian, from Old Persian (5 C. BC) to the present. The first part of the book examines the claim that ergativity in Middle Iranian emerged from an Old Iranian agented passive construction. This view is rejected in favour of a theory which links the emergence of ergativity to External Possession. Thus the primary mechanisms involved is not reanalysis, but the extension of a pre-existing construction. The notion of Non-Canonical Subjecthood plays a pivotal role, which in the present account is linked to the semantics of what is termed Indirect Participation. In the second part of the book, a comparative look at contemporary West Iranian is undertaken. It can be shown that throughout the subsequent developments in the morphosyntax, distinct components such as agreement, nominal case marking, or the grammar of cliticisation, in fact developed remarkably independently of one another. It was this de-coupling of sub-systems of the morphosyntax that led to the notorious multiplicity of alignment types in Iranian, a fact that also characterises past-tense alignments in the sister branch of Indo-European, Indo-Aryan. Along with data from more than 20 Iranian languages, presented in a manner that renders them accessible to the non-specialist, there is extensive discussion of more general topics such as the adequacy of functional accounts of changes in case systems, discourse pressure and the role of animacy, the notion of drift, and the question of alignment in early Indo-European.
Constructing ditransitivity in literary Kurmanji
This study takes a corpus-driven approach based on a collection of contemporary novels and short stories in order to explore various options for realising ditransitive constructions in Kurmanji, discussing some phenomena that pose a challenge to clear categorisation. Semantically, “ditransitive constructions” can be defined as constructions expressing “three-participant events”, involving verbs with three participants, as often referrred to in typological literature: an agent, a theme and a recipient (or recipient-like) participant. Cross-linguistically typical instances are verbs of giving (e.g. dan in Kurmanji), showing (nîşan dan) and saying (gotin), as well as their contraries (pirsîn ‘ask’), and other semantically related verbs. In an interplay between flagging, indexing and word order, Kurmanji reveals a rich formal repertoire that presents a number of challenges to systematisation. It makes use of several morpho-syntactic devices, applied alternatively and generally in combination with oblique case: a postpredicative position, adpositional constructions, a verbal suffix indicating the presence of an indirect object, and light verb ezafe constructions that link an indirect object to the lexical nominal. The study aims at uncovering factors which determine the choice of a construction. The use of formally identifiable ditransitive constructions, on the other hand, clearly transcends the original concept of a “physical transfer”, extending into non-animate, abstract and metaphorical contexts. Depending on the construction at hand, cognitive contents, images, landscapes, sounds, and other non-human core arguments may end up in an agentive role, while humans are frequently expressed as verb complements, particularly undergoers of a self-caused movement. Recipients, on the other hand, can be inanimate entities and even abstract ideas.
Analîzek Li Ser Avaniya Ergatifê
Kurmanji Kurdish has both accusative and ergative alignment. It has accusative alignment in present tenses while ergative alignment is triggered in the past tense transitive sentences. Due to the characteristics of Kurmanji Kurdish verbs and due to the semi-accusative effect, different usages emerge in the ergative structure in Kurmanji. Synchronically, if the structure of the ergative is analyzed, many different uses can be found, due to some language internal and external factors (e.g. language contact), different patterns of ergativity emerges (e.g. double oblique pattern). Different forms are used not only for interlinguistic reasons, but also because of the multilingual backgrounds of Kurmanji speakers. This paper aims to analyze the ergative structure in a synchronic way. First, we will focus on the ergative structure analyzing it in detail. Then, we will examine the use of the ergative constructions in three dialects of Kurmanji Kurdish in terms of age and gender of the speakers. The purpose of this classification of Kurmanji variations and speakers is to see how speakers socially placed in different categories use the ergative structure. Again, by looking at these structures, we can understand the limits of the ergative structure in Kurmanji. The article was found that the ergative structure has gone beyond its canonical limits and different combinations and forms are used by different speakers.
Variation in the ergative pattern of Kurmanji
Kurdish-Kurmanji (or Northern Kurdish) belongs to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. This study is dedicated to a deeper understanding of a specific grammatical feature typical of Kurmanji: the ergative structure. Based on the example of this core structure, and with empirical evidence from the Kurmanji dialect of Muş in Turkey, I will discuss the issues of variation and change in Kurmanji, more precisely the ongoing shift from ergative to nominative-accusative structures. The causes for such a fundamental shift, however, are not easy to define. The close historical vicinity to Turkish and Armenian might be a trigger for the shift; another trigger is language-internal (diachronic) change. In sum, the investigated variation sheds light on a fascinating grammatical change in a language that is also sociopolitically in a situation of constant change, movement, and upheaval.
Case in Kurdish
This chapter surveys the forms of case marking across the dialects of Kurdish, as represented in the MDKD. Structural and non-structural (semantic) cases are expressed through a range of different exponents: adpositions (pre-, post- and circumpositions), morphological case, and word-order properties. Structural cases are invariably non-adpositional across all dialects, with the major isogloss separating those dialects that make use of the Oblique case, which include all of Northern Kurdish and a few dialects of Central Kurdish, from those that have lost it. The marking of semantic cases is subject to considerable areal variation, following an approximate north/south cline with prepositional marking increasingly dominant in the south. The findings are illustrated with data from the MDKD, supplemented with reference to other major sources.
Pronominal clitics in Western Iranian languages
Pronominal clitics comprise one of the important traits of the majority of West Iranian languages. Nevertheless, while these person clitics have been the subject of virtually systematic studies in certain languages, e.g. Central Kurdish dialects, and Persian, they are hardly studied in the majority of languages where they are attested. More specifically, the existing scholarship has faintly dealt with the rise of procliticization, the development of person marking system, the placement of clitics, the cluster internal ordering of clitics, and the clitic-affix combinations. This study is an attempt to fill the lack of knowledge across the aspects mentioned. The development of proclitic attachment forms an integral part of the thesis.