SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to give a systematic description of some aspects of Kurdish verbal construction. It is also an attempt to define the nature of the different sets of personal suffixes, characterizing their functions according to their deep structures. The introduction states the purpose for writing the thesis, and outlines some relevant principles of the theoretical framework used. Chapter 1 describes the phonemic transcription used in this work. Chapter 2 specifies some of the typological characteristics of Kurdish, and deals mainly with the order of the main elements of the sentence. Chapter 3 outlines the system of the phrase structure rules by which simple Kurdish sentences are generated. Chapter 4 describes the morphology of the Kurdish verb. Chapter 5 deals with the concept of cliticization. It specifies the rules by which a non-subject element can be replaced by a personal suffix. Some problems concerning the syntactic functions of the personal suffixes are discussed. It concludes that the different sets of personal suffixes have the same syntactic and semantic functions, but that the function of each suffix in any particular sentence is governed by the tense of the verb and the structure of the sentence. Chapter 6 deals with the copula. It discusses also some of the semantic areas that the copula covers in Kurdish. The main conclusion is that the copula in Kurdish has an overt form only in the 3rd person singular of the present tense and in the past tense. Chapter 7 deals with the Modals. Chapter 8 deals with the passive. It concludes that Kurdish has only a truncated (agentless) passive. Chapter 9 deals with the two different types of causative construction, synthetic and analytic. It discusses the question whether these two types have different deep structiores. This thesis ends with a bibliography.