Kurdish grammar

Kurdish grammar has many Inflections, with prefixes and suffixes added to roots to express grammatical relations and to form words.

Ergativity

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]

Nouns

Sing. M. Sing. F Plur.
Oblique -an
Construct -a -ên/êt
Vocative -o -no/ine
Indefinite -ek- -ek- -anek
Definite -eke- -eke- -ekan

Pronouns

Kurmanji Kurdish uses two types of personal pronouns.

Number Singular Plural
Case NOM. OBL NOM. OBL.
normal suffixnormal suffixnormal suffixnormalsuffix
1st Ez -(i)m Min -(i)m Em -(i)n (ê)Me -man/(i)n
2nd Tu 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.

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 ... (e) ev ... ane vî ... î vê ... ê van ... an(-e)
far ew ... (e) ew ... ane wî ... î wê ... ê wan ... an(-e)
too far how ... e how ... ane how ... ehow ... e how ... ane

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 at, of, from
Ji ra/re from
bo /jibo for
-e to, towards
Di/de da/de tê da/de in
be/bi 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:

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 bizanimbizanîbizanebizanin
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 hatimhatîhat hatin
Imperfective preterite dihatimdihatîdihatdihatin
Perfect hatîmehatîyîhatiyehatine
Pluperfect hatibûmhatibûy(î)hatibûhatibûn
Subjunctive preterite hatibimhatibîhatibehatibin
Past Conditional hatibam(a)hatibay(î)hatiban(a)hatiban(a)

If a transitive verb accepts a nominative personal suffix, it agrees with the object of the sentence. Transitive verbs in Sorani when not used in sentences accept OBL. 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

  1. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ergative-construction
  2. http://kurdishacademy.org/sites/default/files/KurdAlignment_0.pdf
  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

References

External links

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