The decay of ergativity in Kurmanci

Table of contents

Acknowledgements / ix
List of abbreviations used / xi
Map I / xiii
Map II / XV

1. Introduction / 1
1.1. Structural change: the decay of ergativity / 3
1.2. The organisation of this study / 4

2. The present study / 6
2.1. Notes on the classification and distribution of Kurdish / 6
2.2. The Kurmanci speaking community / 7
2.2.1. The Kurdish community in Turkey / 8
2.2.2. Language contact in Turkey / 8
2.2.3. Turkish as the dominant language / 9
2.2.4. Domains of usage / 10
2.3. Defining a norm / 10
2.4. Diyarbakir / 12
2.5. Working hypotheses and research questions / 15
2.6. Types of data and how they were collected / 17
2.6.1. Spontaneous data / 18
2.6.2. Elicited data (translation tasks) / 20
2.6.2.1. Structural conditions / 20
2.6.2.2. Turkish as a contact language / 21
2.6.2.3. Why a translation task / 23
2.6.3. Informants and interviewers / 24
2.7. Data processing: transcription / 28
2.7.1. Spontaneous data / 28
2.7.2. Elicited data / 28

3. Kurmanci: a brief grammatical outline / 31
3.1. Alphabet and phonology / 31
3.1.1. Alphabet and phoneme inventory / 31
3.1.2. The phonological structure of syllables and words / 33
3.2. Word order / 33
3.2.1. Unmarked order of constituents / 34
3.2.2. Structure of constituents / 34
3.3. Nominal categories: gender, number, specific indefiniteness suffix, izafet, case / 35
3.4. Verbal complex / 39
3.4.1. Infinitives and dual verbal root system / 39
3.4.2. Nonfinite forms / 39
3.4.3. The inflected verb / 39
3.5. Grammatical relations / 42
3.5.1. Passive / 42
3.5.2. Causative / 43
3.5.3. Reflexive and reciprocal pronouns / 43
3.6. Subordinate clauses / 44
3.6.1. Relative clauses / 44
3.6.2. Complement clauses / 45
3.6.3. Adverbial clauses / 45

4. Turkish-Kurdish contact phenomena / 47
4.1. Lexical borrowing / 47
4.1.1. Content words / 48
4.1.2. The borrowing of verbs / 49
4.1.3. Function words and discourse markers / 52
4.2. Slight morphological interference / 54
4.2.1. m-doublets / 54
4.2.2. Conditional marker se / 54
4.2.3. Turkish possesive suffixes / 55
4.2.4. Overextension of Kurdish possessive constructions / 55
4.3. Slight syntactic interference / 56
4.4. Loss and leveling of morphology / 57
4.4.1. Loss of gender distinction / 57
4.4.2. Pronouns and demonstratives / 58
4.4.3. The izafet / 58
4.4.4. Case / 60
4.4.5. Morphological leveling / 61
4.5. Morphosyntactic change / 61
4.5.1. Directionals and IO’s / 62
4.5.2. Null-subjects / 64
4.5.3. Case-marked definite objects and indefinite objects without case-marking / 65
4.5.4. Breakdown of the ergative system / 67
4.6. Summary and conclusions / 69

5. Ergativity in Kurmanci / 71
5.1. Ergativity / 72
5.1.1. Syntactic vs. morphological ergativity / 72
5.1.2. Classification of ergative languages / 73
5.2. The diachronic development of ergativity / 74
5.2.1. Ergativity - a marked phenomenon / 75
5.2.2. The diachronic development of ergativity in Iranian languages / 75
5.3. Two proposals concerning the structural nature of ergativity / 77
5.3.1. The Obligatory Case Parameter / 78
5.3.2. Unaccusativity / 80
5.4. Ergativity in Kurmanci / 82
5.4.1. Split-ergativity / 82
5.4.2. Ergative case-marking / 83
5.4.3. Ergative verbal agreement / 85
5.4.4. Morphological ergativity / 85
5.4.5. The distribution of ergative morphology / 89
5.4.6. Agreement pattern with reflexives and reciprocals / 90
5.4.7. Indirect transitives / 91
5.4.8. Fronting of the direct object / 91
5.5. Analysis / 93
5.5.1. Structural position of the S-argument / 94
5.5.2. ABS = NOM morphologically / 94
5.5.3. ABS is obligatory in finite clauses / 95
5.5.4. ABS is assigned in a manner different from NOM / 97
5.5.5. Verbal agreement dependent on ABS? / 97
5.5.6. Is there evidence for the different nature of verb endings
in past transitive structures in Kurmanci? / 99
5.5.7. Summary / 103
5.6. The participial nature of past verbal morphology / 103
5.6.1. Is past-root morphology case-absorbing? / 104
5.6.2. Infinitives in Kurmanci / 107
5.6.3. Case-absorbing past root morphology.
Some evidence from other Iranian languages / 109
5.6.4. A speculative intermezzo on the role of infinitives
in the history of Iranian languages / 112
5.6.5. Summary / 113
5.7. How is OBL assigned to the subject and ABS to the object / 114
5.6. The participial nature of past verbal morphology / 103
5.6.1. Is past-root morphology case-absorbing? / 104
5.6.2. Infinitives in Kurmanci / 107
5.6.3. Case-absorbing past root morphology.
Some evidence from other Iranian languages / 109
5.6.4. A speculative intermezzo on the role of infinitives
in the history of Iranian languages / 112
5.6.5. Summary / 113
5.7. How is OBL assigned to the subject and ABS to the object / 114

6. From ergative-absolutive to nominative-accusative? / 116
6.1. Deviant patterns / 116
6.1.1. The unexpected case-agreement patterns / 117
6.1.2. Agreement with OBL subjects (OBL DIR SA and OBL OBL SA) / 118
6.1.3. Agreement with OBL objects (OBL OBL, OA and DIR OBL OA) / 119
6.1.4. Non-agreement with DIR objects in OBL DIR constructions
(OBL DIR NA and OBL DIR SA) / 120
6.1.5. Non-agreement with DIR subjects in DIR OBL constructions
(DIR OBL NA and DIR OBL OA) / 121
6.1.6. DIR DIR constructions (DIR DIR OA, DIR DIR NA, DIR DIR SA) / 121
6.1.7. Summary / 122
6.1.8. OBL OBL NA / 123
6.1.9. DIROBLSA / 126
6.2. Analysis / 127
6.2.1. Third person singular (3s) / 128
6.2.2. Loss of OBL case-marking on singular NP’s / 128
6.2.3. Case-marking of definite direct objects / 129
6.2.4. DIR 3s: unmarked for person / 130
6.2.5. Second person singular (2s) / 131
6.2.6. A unified form for 2s and loss of the verbal agreement morpheme / 132
6.2.7. OBL renders person features inaccessible / 133
6.2.8. Third person plural (3p) / 133
6.2.9. 3p verbal agreement: number only / 134
6.2.9.1. 3p objects in OBL OBL structures: avoidance of
ambiguity and direct object marking / 136
6.3. Summary / 137
6.4. Marking of definite direct objects, movement of
arguments, null-subjects and the consequences / 137
6.4.1. The marking of definite direct objects / 138
6.4.2. Movement of the direct object / 140
6.4.3. Placement of adverbial constituents between the verb and the direct object / 143
6.4.4. Null subjects / 146
6.4.5. Summary / 149

7. Conclusions and suggestions for further research / 151
7.1. Conclusions / 151
7.2. Further research / 153

Appendices / 155
1. The long translation task / 155
2. The short translation task / 159
3. A sample of Hasan’s text / 161
4. A sample of Izzet’s text / 165
5. A sample of Sadiks text / 170

References / 175

Samenvatting in het Nederlands / 181