Magin_Edward-thesis

83
(59) ew dixtur bî-Ø
3D doctor COP.PST.3SG
‘S/he was the doctor.’
(60) Tu dergeh bu-î (BS7:15)
2D door COP.PST-2SG
‘You were the door.’
4.4.3.5 Irregular verbs
Above I discussed the irregular non-past copula forms. Northern Kurdish has
some other verbs that have irregularities. Below are the most common of these.
The verb vîa/vê, ‘want’ (past stem/present stem) is a transitive verb that always
uses an ergative-absolutive agreement system. For this verb, the most subject-like
constituent, a semantic experiencer, is always expressed by the oblique case, whatever
the tense. Examples (61) and (62) illustrate both present and past utterances. In both
sentences the subject is the oblique case personal pronoun min, 1O. The object, the
possessed entity, is in the direct case, having no oblique suffix. The verb in each sentence
agrees with the object. The plurality of sêv, ‘apple,’ in (62) is handled by the verb
agreement, whereas in other situations, such as present tense conjugations of regular
verbs, plurality is handled by means of a plural oblique suffix.
(61) min sêv-ek di-vê-t
1O apple-INDF IPFV-want.PRS-3SG
‘I want an apple.’
(62) min hindek sêv vîa-n
1O some apple want.PST-3PL
I wanted some apples.
The other common transitive verb with ergative-absolutive agreement in all tenses
is hebû(hebî)/heb, often translated as ‘have.’ However, hebû/heb may also be used for
non-possessive, existential usages, such as the English ‘There is…’ or ‘I exist.’ The
present and past irregular forms are summarized in Table 11.