—Kurmanji Kurdish— A Reference Grammar with Selected Readings

see §33.
Çavên Nazê nedikaribûn êdî hêstiran
paş ve vegerînin.
Nazê’s eyes couldn’t keep back the tears
any longer.
Wî baş dizanibû ku wê rê şaş ne kiriye. He well knew that he hadn’t made a
mistake.
A rastî me nizanibû em bi ku da diçin. We really didn’t know where we were
going.
Although, strictly speaking, karîn is intransitive, in the past tenses the
choice of nominative or oblique subject pronoun is generally dictated by the
complementary verb. When the complementary verb is intransitive, the
nominative pronoun is used and karîn is conjugated as an intransitive, as in
the following:
Ez êdî nikarîbûm li ser lingan rawestiyama.
I was still not able to get up on my legs.
Ez nikarîbûm jê re bibûma alîkar. I wasn’t able to be helpful to him.
When the complementary verb is transitive, the oblique pronoun is used and
karîn is conjugated as an ergative, as in the following:
Te nikaribû awirên xwe ji destê çakêtê
vala dûr bikî.
Qederê mehekê min nikarîbû dora xwe
bidîta.
KURMANJI KURDISH
You couldn’t take your eyes off the
empty sleeve of the jacket.
For a month I wasn’t able to see my surroundings..
§ 22. The Past Subjunctive. The past subjunctive is formed like the past
perfect, but instead of the past tense of bûn, the present subjunctive of bûn
is added, and to the whole is added the bí- subjunctive prefix (which may be
omitted for stylisic reasons) or né- for the negative. As with all past tenses,
the past subjunctive is nonergative with intransitives and ergative with transitives.
INTRANSITIVE TRANSITIVE/ERGATIVE
ez bihatibim em bihatibin min bidîtibe me bidîtibe
tu bihatibî hun bihatibin te bidîtibe we bidîtibe
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