The Nature of Verb Lexical Aspect and Its Relation to-rā/rē Non-Active Morpheme in Sorani Kurdish

زبانشناسی و گویش های خراسان

Article 3, Volume 5, Issue 8, April 2013, Pages 53-80   

Document Type: علمی - پژ‍وهشی

DOI: 10.22067/lj.v5i8.34486

Authors

Fatemeh Daneshpazhouh^* ; Gholamhossein Karimi-Dustan; Zeynab Mohammad Ebrahimi; Belqies Roshan

Abstract

The present paper examines the nature of verb lexical aspect and its relation to -rā/rē non-active morpheme in Sorani Kurdish based on Vendler (1956 & 1967) and Croft (2010). The research method is analytic-descriptive. The article shows that although some verbs have the same aspectual features, they don’t have the same behaviour regarding the attachment of rē/rā morpheme since the verb form, namely simple or non-simple, affects the attaching -rē/rā morpheme. It shows that not only the lexical aspect, but the form of the verb morphology plays a crucial role in accounting for the presence or absence of -rā/rē morpheme at the syntax level which, in turn, implicates the interaction between the meaning, morphology and syntax in this language. Furthermore, in this article, it is shown that in most cases, the "in phrase" and "for phrase" tests are not efficient means to distinguish telic from atelic events. This causes these tests not to play a crucial role to distinguish events based on lexical aspect in Kurdish. Nonetheless, the-rā/rē non-active morpheme can attach to the verb in both telic and atelic events. So there is no direct relationship between a non-active structure and the telicity.

Keywords

lexical aspect; grammatical aspect; telicity; non-active structure; Sorāni Kurdish