Grammatical Aspect in English and Kurdish - University of Sulaimani

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(15) ewa nu:st - bu - n ‘ you had slept’ the present perfect is expressed by –ua:. (16) nan im xward - wua ‘ I have eaten’ Ahmad (2008: 82-83) made use of Amin’s (2004:73) classification gives another type of aspect which is perfect continuous. It has the following form: bu - past la + base + da + da + b–future + personal pronouns Ø - present (17) laøoštin+da+yn = laøoyštindayn ‘we are in the middle of walking’ (18) laøoštin +da+bu+yn= laøoštindabuyn ‘we were in the middle of walking’ (19) laøoštin +da+dab+yn= laøoštindadabyn ‘we will be in the middle of walking’ Table 1.2 Amin’s classification of Kurdish aspectual system (2004:71) Tense Aspect Rules Examples past simple continuous perfect conditional past stem+ personal pronouns da+past stem+ personal pronouns past stem+bu:+ personal pronouns bi+ past stem+ personal pronouns+a:ya hatin - xwardman dahatin - damanxward hatibuin - xwardbu:man bihatina:ya - bimanxwarda:ya present simple perfect da+ future stem”+ pers. prons. past stem+u:+ pers. prons.+ -a with intransitive verbs, -a appeared only with the third person singular. danu:si:n - danu:in xwardumana - nu:stuin Both Ahmad (2008:98) and Amin (2004:71) agree on that there are four types of aspect: simple, perfect, progressive and conditional. These aspects occur with the past and the present tenses. Kurdish does not have the perfect progressive aspect but instead it has the conditional aspect. Table 1.3 Qadir’s classification of Kurdish aspectual system (2004:63) Aspect marker da- -u- uw Meaning a. it precedes the present stem and expresses the beginning of the action. b. it precedes the past stem and expresses the beginning of the action and it participates in the formation of past continuous. It occurs at the end of past simple and composes past perfect. The form of this aspect changes according to the type of the verb whether it is transitive or intransitive and also according to the morphemes of past. Examples a. darom ‘I go’ b. dahatim ‘ I was coming’. a. naxošaka mirduwa. ‘the patient has died’ b. èaka kulawa. ‘ The tea has boiled’ -a This morpheme expresses a permanent situation. zistan sarda. ‘winter is cold’ -awa/wa It occurs at the end of the stem, it has two roles: a. this suffix attaches to the past and present stems to indicate repetition. b. It also attaches to the present stem to show certainty in the speech which is uttered by the speaker. It also indicates the beginning of the happening in future time after speech. demawa. ‘I will come back’ 25 BÑoÐG+/--6Òg?i@Ô+%/2&Ïg@½e+ÑÁ@¾âÌºkÒÙÁ?iÒg@¡Ù}
Table 1.4 Ahmad’s classification of Kurdish aspectual system (2004:270): Aspect Meaning Examples perfective a. in the past, it is marked by t, d, i, a, u . b. in the non-past, it is restricted to subordinate clauses with subjunctive marker binu:st ‘slept’ bird ‘took’ nu:si ‘wrote’ hena ‘brought’ èu: ‘went’ imperfective It is marked by the combination of the imperfective marker da- daxom ‘I eat’ Progressive 26 with both past and non-past stems. It is not restricted to one tense although it is clearer than in the present tense. damxward ‘ I was eating’ As far as the first type is concerned, he mentions that both past and non-past perfective forms describe the situation as a single- complete whole. They differ in that the former has past time reference and context independent while the latter has future time reference and context dependent. Whereas the imperfective aspect has continuous, noncompletion and habitual interpretation. He mentions that progressivity is classified under imperfectivity but they are two different notions because imperfectivity always expresses unlimited habiuality whereas progressivity may express limited habituality. The progressive aspect explains a situation which is in progress. From the above discussion, one can conclude that Kurdish has two main aspect types: marked and unmarked. Kurdish marked aspects are those aspects which are realized by inflectional morphemes, it is marked by perfect (bu:) and progressive aspects (da-) (20) a. øošt i -bu: -n (‘ they had gone’) b. da – øoy št -n (‘we were going’) While the unmarked aspect refers to those types of aspect which are not realized by any markers .It is determined by simple aspect. Here are the Kurdish aspects: 1- Simple Aspect: it indicates the completion or the non completion of the action. This aspect is unmarked for the past and present simple tenses. For instance, (21) aw namaka –Ø- y nus i: ‘ he wrote a letter’ perfectiveness aw nama danu:set ‘ he writes a letter’ imperfectiveness The symbol / Ø/ indicates the past simple aspect which determines the totality of the action, here the past verb does not carry any markers. 2- Progressive Aspect: it can be realized by -da which indicates the duration and the non-completion of the action. For instance, (22) kuøaka namay da nu:si ka zang léyda perfectiveness ‘he was writing a letter when the bell rang’ 3- Perfect Aspect: It can be realized by (bu:) ‘had done’ and (uwa) ‘have+PP’, it is a situation which combines past with present time reference. (23) a. min namakam nu:si –bu: ‘I had written the letter’ perfectiveness b. min namakam nu:siwa ‘I have written the letter’. imperfectiveness BÑoÐG+/--6Òg?i@Ô+%/2&Ïg@½e+ÑÁ@¾âÌºkÒÙÁ?iÒg@¡Ù}
Page 1 and 2: Grammatical Aspect in 20 English a
Page 3 and 4: elations which are realized by verb
Page 5: Table 1.1 b. He played tennis well.
Page 9 and 10: 5- Each type of aspect in the two l
Page 11 and 12: References 1- Ahmed, M. F. (2004).

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