Imperative construction in Kurdish

Document Type : Research Paper

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Abstract

The present paper aims at investigating the imperative paradigm in Kurdish language by drawing on two criteria, namely formal homogeneity and minimality/maximality. The results show that Kurdish language specifies morphological imperative constructions just for second persons; and expressing any commandment directed at non-second persons requires analytical constructions (4 constructions). By scrutinizing the heterogeneous imperative constructions in Kurdish, the paper shows that Kurdish has an imperative paradigm characterized by a minimal system without any maximal counterpart. Also, the canonical imperative construction in Kurdish is specified by some characteristics including temporal distinctions and different prefixes for prohibition and negation. Finally, the paper tries to explain semantic aspects of different imperative constructions in Kurdish by considering two criteria of second person subject and force exertion. The results show that the canonical imperatives include most of the semantic features of the prototypical imperative category; whereas, the non-canonical ones lack most of these semantic aspects.

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References

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