Historical linguistic sources of Kurdish date back just a few hundred years, thus it is not possible to track the profound grammatical changes of Western Iranian languages in Kurdish. Through a comparison with attested languages of the Middle Iranian period, this paper provides a hypothetical chronology of grammatical changes. It allows us to tentatively localise the approximate time when modern varieties separated with regard to the respective grammatical change. In order to represent the types of linguistic relationship involved, distinct models of language contact and language continua are set up.
Archives
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.
Pronominal Clitics Across Kurdish
Introduction to Special Issue
The Kurdish language is an integral component of any conceptualisation of “Kurdishness”, but just what constitutes Kurdish remains highly disputed. In this introduction, we take up a number of key questions relating to Kurdish (e.g. whether it is one or more than one language, which varieties should be considered under Kurdish, what are its origins, etc.), discussing them in the light of contemporary linguistics. A critical assessment of the notions of “language” and “dialect” is followed by a review of different approaches to classifying Kurdish, and exemplified through the case-study of Zazaki. We suggest that a good deal of the confusion arises through a failure to distinguish different kinds of linguistic evidence (in a narrow sense), from the results of socially contracted and negotiated perceptions of identity, rooted in shared belief systems and perceptions of a common history. We then present an overview of recent trends in Kurdish linguistics and attempt to identify some of the most pressing research desiderata.