Ergativity in Kurdish Language

Abstract EN

This study deals with the ergativity in Kurdish Language, since the ergativity is a case system and within a case system, languages can be classified into "accusative" "ergative" and "active" according to how they mark the core arguments in a clause.

The objective of this study to find out the phenomenon of ergativity status as a case system in the Kurdish language.

First of all, the study presents transitivity in Kurdish language, and then it explains case systems in which it identifies ergative, accusative and active languages.

After this the study illustrates case marking which is divided into three types; case endings, markedness of pronouns and markedness of clitics which are the core topics to examine Kurdish 'language, particularly the Hawler subdialect comparing with sulemani subdialect and Northern Kurmanji (NK) dialect to indicate split-ergativity and clitic movement in Hawler subdialect.

Then the study presents the criteria to test ergativity such as Equi-deletion, raising rules and causative.

At the end it presents the conclusion and bibliography.