Volume 2, Issue 2 (2011)                   LRR 2011, 2(2): 73-99 | Back to browse issues page

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1- Associate Professor, Department of General Linguistics, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
2- M.A., Department of General Linguistics, Kordestan University, Sanandaj, Iran
Abstract:   (6389 Views)
This paper is an attempt to analyze the ergative constructions in Hawrami. Like other Kurdish dialects, Hawrami utilizes split ergativity only in the aorist constructions. Along with the process of Clitic Doubling, this dialect uses another mechanism for manifesting the ergative pattern. This rare mechanism is only found in Hawrami and not elsewhere in Kurdish. In the constructions, which are derived according to the second mechanism, the direct object and the subject undergo the processes of toplicalization and focusing, respectively. Hence, comparing to the other ergative constructions, which are derived on the basis of Clitic Doubling; these specific constructions bear a more marked semantic interpretation. The constituents of these marked ergative constructions follow a rigid order: the direct object appears at the beginning, the subject, which is always accompanied by Oblique case marker, gets the second position, and the final position is occupied by the past transitive verb. Making any slight change in this order would result in the ungrammaticality of the construction. The present paper, on the one hand, tries to describe the main characteristics of both marked and unmarked ergative constructions in Hawrami, and seeks to provide a theoretical account for the derivation of marked ergative constructions and their characteristics on the other. The proposed account is mainly based on the theoretical apparatus of Minimalist Program; especially the recently introduced notions of Split CP Hypothesis, Focus Phrase, and Topic Phrase.
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Published: 2011/06/14

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