Magin_Edward-thesis

143
baẍ u rez u darubar
garden and orchard and forest
‘garden and orchard and forest’
cins-ê kulîlk-a hizar
specie-EZ.M flower-OBL.PL thousand
‘a thousand species of flowers’
In another poem by Nalbend, Duhî Spêdê Liser Banî, ‘Yesterday Morning On The
Rooftop,’ we find a similar situation. In line 39, shown in (208), the subject ez, 1D, while
not at the end of the phrase, comes after the attribute and copula. The normal word order
for the phrase is ez dirêj bûm li kulanê, which still has kulanê at the end of the line.
Hence, Nalbend must have had some reason other than rhyme for the order he chose.
(208) dirêj_bû-m ez li kulan-ê (AN1:39)
lie.down_COP.PST-1SG 1D in alley-OBL.F
‘I layed down in the alley.’
Xalaf’s Dahola Êşê, ‘Drum of Pain,’ contains an equative sentence with the
subject, ew şev, ‘that night,’ at the end of the line. It is preceded by the entire predicate,
kefenekî spî bû, ‘was a white shroud.’ As with the VS order in the previous section, it is
interesting to find this constituent order in a prose poem.
(209) belkî kefen-ek-î 77 spî bû-Ø ew şev (MX:17)
perhaps shroud-INDF-EZ.M white COP.PST-3SG 3D night
‘Perhaps that night was a white shroud.’
In one line from a Sindî poem, I thought I had found another example of a subject
being out of place. However, according to my consultant the phrase nabit eve is perfectly
acceptable in the language, as is eve nabit. Nabit consists of a negator prefix, na-, and the
3SG copula bit. Eve consists of ev, which means ‘this,’ and the specific reference marker,
-e (SRM). I suppose this particular phrase has become lexicalized in the language. This
leaves the possibility of seeing other similar phrases used in common speech where a
pronoun subject comes after an equative predicate.
77 It seems unusual to see a masculine ezafe -î in the Badinan area. Perhaps it is common in the spoken
langauge of area Xalaf’s family came from.