This book is a comprehensive grammatical description of the Hewramî variety of Tekht, grounded in current linguistic methodsHewramî is one of the most morphologically complex West Iranian languagesIt is spoken by several thousand people in the high mountainous Hewraman region situated between Iranian and Iraqi Kurdistan. This work is primarily based on a corpus of 46 narratives, collected during several trips to the Hewraman region between 2016 and 2023This corpus was supplemented by elicitation tasks to provide a detailed account of the phonology, morphology, and syntax of HewramîAdditionally, the grammar touches on prosody and information structureThe analysis is grounded in linguistic theory, particularly informed by the functionaltypological approach.
Contents
Acknowledgments / xiii Abbreviations / xv
1 Introduction / 1 1.1 Hewramî and its varieties / 1 1.2 The place of Hewramî within Iranian dialectology / 4 1.3 Hewraman Tekht / 7 1.4 The affiliation of Tekht Hewramî and its status within Hewramî dialectology / 8 1.5 Earlier research / 10 1.6 Fieldwork behind this study / 11 1.7 Main text corpus / 13 1.8 Folktale corpus / 16
2 Typological overview 19 2.1 Phonology / 19 2.2 Morphology / 21 2.3 Syntax / 27 2.3.1 Word order / 28 2.3.2 Alignment / 29 2.3.3 Grammatical relations / 31 2.3.3.1 Differential A indexing / 31 2.3.3.2 Differential P indexing / 33 2.3.3.3 Differential A flagging / 34 2.3.3.4 Differential P flagging / 36 2.3.3.5 Differential case marking on non-core arguments / 38
11 Grammatical relations 347 11.1 Argument indexing / 348 11.1.1 Argument indexing in TAM constructions built on the present stem of the verb / 349 11.1.2 Argument indexing in TAM constructions built on the past stem of the verb / 350 11.1.2.1 Differential A indexing / 354 11.1.2.2 Differential P indexing / 361 11.2 Argument flagging / 366 11.2.1 Differential A flagging / 368 11.2.2 Differential P flagging / 372 11.2.3 Differential flagging of non-core arguments / 379
This book is the product of several rounds of fieldwork in Hewraman between 2016 and 2023It would not have been possible without the support of many individualsIt is my great pleasure to acknowledge their contributions here.
I am deeply grateful to my informants and storytellers in Hewraman Tekht for welcoming me into their community and offering me unique access to their language and cultureI owe special thanks to my primary informant, Amir Qasemi, who patiently answered my many questions about his native language and kindly introduced me to some members of the local community. My friends Kamran Zamani and Heyder Fatemi provided valuable assistance with the logistical aspects of the fieldworkI was warmly received during each visit to Hewraman, and I dedicate this book to its people in recognition of their ongoing effort to preserve their language in a rapidly changing world.
The idea of writing a grammar of Hewramî emerged during my collaboration with Geoffrey Khan on our joint study, Language contact in Sanandaj: A study of the impact of Iranian on Neo-AramaicThrough that collaboration, I came to appreciate the importance of documenting Hewramî as an endangered language. Geoffrey’s support and encouragement have been invaluable over the years.
I am especially indebted to my friend and colleague Shuan Osman Karim, who went above and beyond in assisting with the technical aspects of the grammar, including typesetting in LATEX and developing Python scripts to export the text corpus from FLEx into the required LATEX template for linguistic examples, as well as to extract glossaries from the text corpus.
I am grateful to Martin Haspelmath for accepting this manuscript into the series ‘Comprehensive Grammar Library’, for arranging the review process with multiple reviewers, and for sharing his own constructive comments on several occasionsI am equally grateful to anonymous reviewers whose insightful feedback on earlier versions of the book significantly improved the work. My thanks extend to all the individuals who contributed to proofreading and offered suggestions on the revised versionI thank Sebastian Nordhoff for his consistent assistance and professionalism throughout the publication process.
Finally, I extend my heartfelt thanks to my wife, Slava, for her unflagging support throughout the years.
The research on the book from September 2021 onwards was made possible by funding from the European Research Council (ERC, ALHOME, 101021183), for which I am grateful.
1 Introduction
The mountainous Zagros regions of northwestern Iran and northern Iraq are characterised by rich linguistic diversityVarieties of Kurdish are spoken across much of the area, along with remaining varieties of Gorani and Neo-Aramaic. Over the last two decades, there has been a growing interest in documenting peripheral Gorani varieties, leading to the publication of a few sketch grammars of these endangered languages (see Mahmoudveysi et al.’s 2012 description of the Gewrecû variety, Mahmoudveysi & Bailey’s 2013 description of the Zerde variety) Despite these welcome documentation efforts, the more conservative Hewramî varieties of Gorani have lacked a decent monograph-length description since MacKenzie’s (1966) seminal sketch grammar of the Luhon variety of Hewramî.
This book aims to fill this gap by providing a comprehensive grammar of the Tekht variety of Hewramî, one of the most conservative Hewramî varieties spoken in the high mountainous region of Hewraman Tekht straddling Iranian and Iraqi KurdistanThe grammar is accompanied by a Hewramî-English glossary, an English-Hewramî glossary, and a verb list.
This chapter is structured as follows: §1.1 provides a general description of Hewramî and its varieties§1.2 discusses the place of Hewramî within Iranian languages. Then, I move on to give a brief description of Hewraman Tekht (§1.3), followed by the affiliation of the Tekht variety within Hewramî dialectology (§1.4). In §1.5, I give an overview of the literature on Gorani varieties§1.6 summarises the fieldwork behind producing this grammarThe chapter ends with information about the main corpus of narrative texts (§1.7) behind this study, followed by an additional corpus of folktales used to back up the description of morphosyntactic features (§1.8).
1.1 Hewramî and its varieties
Hewramî is an Iranian language spoken in the remote mountainous region at the heart of the Kurdish-speaking region along the western border of Iran and neighbouring areas in Iraqi KurdistanHewramî is a name used by Hewramî people 1 Introduction to refer to themselves and their languagePublished references to the language appear in the following forms: Awromānie (Christensen & Benedictsen 1921); Auramânî (Mann & Hadank 1930); Hawrāmī (MacKenzie 1966, Mahmoudveysi & Bailey 2018); Hawrami (Holmberg & Odden 2008, Haig 2008, Stilo 2019)The exonyms maço ‘he/she says’ and maço zuwan ‘maço language’ are sometimes used by neighbouring Kurdish-speaking people to refer to the languageIn addition, in some linguistic studies, e.g., Khan & Mohammadirad (2024a, 2024b), the cover term Gorani has been used interchangeably with Hewramî.
.....
Masoud Mohammadirad
A Grammar of Hewramî
Language Science Press
Language Science Press Comprehensive Grammar Library 11 A grammar of Hewramî Masoud Mohammadirad
Comprehensive Grammar Library Editor: Martin Haspelmath In this series: 1 Jacques, GuillaumeA grammar of Japhug. 2 Grimm, NadineA grammar of Gyeli. 3 Maurer-Cecchini, PhilippeA grammar of Tuatschin: A Sursilvan Romansh dialect. 4 Visser, ElineA grammar of Kalamang. 5 Caballero, GabrielaA grammar of Choguita Rarámuri: In collaboration with Luz Elena León Ramírez, Sebastián Fuentes Holguín, Bertha Fuentes Loya and other Choguita Rarámuri language experts. 6 Barlow, RussellA grammar of Ulwa (Papua New Guinea). 7 Terhart, LenaA grammar of Paunaka. 8 Pebley, Carol J& Thomas EPayneA grammar of Kagayanen. 9 Rohleder, JeanA grammar of Vamale. 10 Kasak, RyanA grammar of Mandan. 11Mohammadirad, MasoudA grammar of Hewramî.
ISSN (print): 2748-971X ISSN (electronic): 2749-7798 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17140766 Source code available from www.github.com/langsci/517 Errata: paperhive.org/documents/remote?type=langsci&id=517
Cover and concept of design: Ulrike Harbort Typesetting: Masoud Mohammadirad Proofreading: Carlos Fasola, Aidan Winberry, Elliott Pearl, Gracious Temsen, Jeroen van de Weijer, Lachlan Mackenzie, Mary Ann Walter, Matthew Korte, Nicoletta Romeo, Patricia Cabredo, Steven Kaye Fonts: Libertinus, Arimo, DejaVu Sans Mono Typesetting software: XƎLATEX
Language Science Press Scharnweberstraße 10 10247 Berlin, Germany http://langsci-press.org support@langsci-press.org
