Magin_Edward-thesis

85
(64) pênc zarok-ên wî hene (Thackston 2006:32)
five child-EZ.PL 3OM exist.PRS.3PL
‘He has five children.’ or more literally, ‘There are five children of him.’
Examples in Şirîn’s language learning series (2006) agree with Thackston’s
explanation. The only difference, which may only be common to those who speak the
Bahdini subdialect, is that the possessive pronoun may appear sentence initially, as if it
were the subject. Consider example (65) from Şirîn. Here the NP that expresses the
possessed entity has the masculine ezafe particle, -ê. The noun qelem, ‘pen,’ however is
seemingly without a modifier. I have observed that this is the common order of words for
this statement in the Bahdini subdialect.
(65) min qelem-ek-ê hey (Şirîn and Buşra 2006:103)
1O pen-INDF-EZ.M exist.PRS.3SG
‘I have a pen.’
Interestingly, the future and past tenses (in the Bahdini subdialect) follow the
normal conjugations for verbs, and the object does not exhibit the possessive construct
via the ezafe particle. This is evident in both Thackston’s and Şirîn’s examples for
present and past tense. The following examples are from Şirîn’s grammar reference cards
(2002:6). Past tense verbs (not shown) use the stem for past tense, hebû (or hebî).
Example (67) shows how the present stem, heb, does not appear in a negated form. The
verb is glossed as ‘be.’
(66) min kitêb dê heb-it
1O book will have.PRS-3SG
‘I will have the book.’
(67) wê êdî biçîk na-b-in
3OF ever child NEG-be.PRS-3PL
‘She will never have children.’
The last two common verbs that exhibit irregular form are hat/ê, ‘come,’ and
îna/în, ‘bring’ or ‘take.’ For both verbs the imperfective aspect marker, di- (see
§ 4.4.3.7.1) appears, and is thus written, as a t-. The i in di- elides and the d takes on the
feature of –voice. Examples (68) and (69) from Şirîn show each verb with imperfective
aspect.