Kurdish grammar

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

Split-Ergative System[]

Among all modern 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]

Sorani Kurdish has a split-ergative system. Transitive verbs show nominative/accusative marking in the present tense, and ergative marking in the past tense.^[6]

Nouns[]

Summary[]

• A Kurdish noun in the absolute state, in other words without any ending of any kind, gives a generic sense of the noun.
• It is also the citation form of the noun, i.e. the form in which a noun is given in a vocabulary list or dictionary.
• Nouns in Kurmanji are declined in four cases: nominative, oblique, construct (or ezafe) and vocative. The distinction of nominative and oblique doesn't exist in Sorani.
• Nouns in Sorani can be simple or compound.
• Any unmodified noun in Kurdish may be generic, i.e., it can refer to one or more than one items. Plural is not obligatory when more than one item are implied.
• For most in Sorani nouns the plural is formed through adding a suffix, some are formed through irregular endings. For Kurmanji, nominative plural is marked by verbs.
• There are 3 grammatical genders in Kurmanji: feminine, masculine and neuter. Sorani has no grammatical gender. Languages like Zazaki and Hawramani have likewise 3 grammatical genders.
• In Kurmanji, as in many other Indo-European languages, the assignment of noun genders often seems arbitrary and must be memorized by word. However, all nouns derived from infinitives, names of settlements (including countries), nouns being female by nature, and nouns ending in -î are always feminine. These genders also has distinct case endings.
• Definiteness is not formally marked in Kurmanji. In Sorani nouns may be marked with a definite marker (-aka) or an indefinite marker (-ēk).
• Adjectives agree with the nouns they modify in number and case.
• Personal pronouns are marked for number and person (1st, 2nd, 3rd). They can be free-standing or take the form of clitics. Free-standing forms are used for emphasis.

Kurmanji

	Sing. M.	Sing. F	Plur.
Oblique	-î	-ê	-an
Construct	-ê	-a	-ên/êt
Vocative	-o	-ê	-no/ine

Sorani

	Sing.	Plur.
Indefinite	-êk-
Definite	-eke-	-ekan

Possession[]

Ezafe is used with nouns to indicate possession. Ezafe (-y) joins the possessive noun with its possessed noun

jēgā-y pāsā = the king's place (Lit: place of king)

Ezafe is also used alongside pronouns to show possession. Ezafe (-y) joins the possessor pronoun with its possessed noun.^[7]

jēgā-y min = my place (Lit: place of me)

Pronouns in various Kurdish languages and other languages for comparison[]

	Central Kurdish[8]	Southern Kurdish[9]	Modern Persian[citation needed]	Kurmanji[10]	Gorani[11]	Zazaki[12]	Talysh[13][14]	Avestan[15]	Parthian[16]	Middle Persian[16]
	no distinction of nominative and oblique			nominative
1. person singular	min	min	man	ez	min	ez	az	azəm	az	an
2. person singular	to	ti	to	tu, ti	to	ti	tı	tvəm	tu	to
3. person singular	ew	ew	ū, ān	ew	ad (masculine), ade (feminine)	o (masculine), a (feminine)	əv	hva- (masculine) hā (feminine)	ho	oy
1. person plural	ême	îme	mā	em	ême	ma	əmə	ahma- (accusative)	amāh	amāh
2. person plural	êwe	îwe	şomā	hûn	şime	şima	şımə	yūšma- (accusative)	aşmāh	aşmāh
3. person plural	ewane	ewane	işān, inhā	ew / ewana	adê	ê	əvon	?	hawin	oy

Oblique

Kurmanji[17]	Zazaki [18]	Parthian[16][19]	Middle Persian[19]	Talysh[20][21]
Oblique				accusative
min	mi(n)	man	man	mıni
te	to	to	to	tıni
wî	ey	ho	oy	əvi
wê	ay	ho	-	-
me	ma	amāh	amāh	əməni
we	şıma	aşmāh	aşmāh	şıməni
wan	inan	hawin	awêşān	əvoni

Adjectives[]

In Sorani, adjectives follow the head noun and may be joined by 'ezafe' or an open compound structure. The following example shows the Ezafe construction:

pyāw-ī  čak = a good fellow (Lit: man of good)

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 ... han	ev ... ana	vî ... î	vê ... ê	van ... an
far	ew ... han	ew ... ana	wî ... î	wê ... ê	wan ... an

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[]

Verbs[]

General description[]

Kurdish verbs agree with their subjects in person and number. They have the following major characteristics:

• Verbs have two stems: present and past.
• Present stems can be simple or secondary.
• Simple tenses are formed by the addition of personal endings to the two stems.
• Secondary stems consist of a root + suffixes that indicate transitivity, intransitivity, and causativity.
• There are 3 tenses: present, past, and future.
• There are 2 voices: active and passive.
• There are 2 aspects: imperfective and perfective. Aspect is as important as tense.
• There are 4 moods: indicative, conditional, imperative, and potential.
• Past tense transitive sentences are formed as ergative constructions, i.e., transitive verbs in the past tense agree with the object rather than the subject of the sentence.

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	bizanim	bizanî	bizane	bizanin
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	hatim	hatî	hat	hatin
Imperfective preterite	dihatim	dihatî	dihat	dihatin
Perfect	hatime	hatiyî	hatiye	hatine
Pluperfect	hatibûm	hatibûy(î)	hatibû	hatibûn
Subjunctive preterite	hatibim	hatibî	hatibe	hatibin
Past Conditional	hatibama	hatibay(î)	hatiba	hatibana

If a past transitive verb accepts a nominative personal suffix, it agrees with the object of the sentence. Transitive past verbs in Sorani have OBL connected/dependent(not independent) personal pronouns on the object, if object is not mentioned they are on prefix or first part of the verb if the verb was compound, if there were not any prefix so they will be on the same place as th NOM ones. OBL connected pronouns: -m, -t, -y, -man, -tan, -yan.

Word order[]

The normal word order in Kurdish is Subject-Object-Verb (S-O-V). Modifiers follow the nouns they modify.

See also[]

• Elî Teremaxî

Notes[]

References[]

• W. M. Thackston (2006) Kurmanji Kurdish: A Reference Grammar with Selected Readings
• W. M. Thackston (2006) Sorani Kurdish— A Reference Grammar with Selected Readings

External links[]

• Learn Kurdish
• Kurdish Academy of Language