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
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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.
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.