Magin_Edward-thesis

162
rundk-a ez lê di-werîn-im
tears-OBL.PL 1D for.3OM IPFV-shed.PRS-1SG
‘I am shedding tears for him.’
Inclusion or exclusion of a subject personal pronoun can help the poet reach a desired
line length, as seems to be the case in lines 5 and 6 above. However, it is possible that
inclusion of a subject pronoun in some instances has some pragmatic purpose, perhaps
that of emphasis. It seems likely, though, that Sindî’s motivation for using ez in line 6
was to gain an extra syllable for the line. Concerning line 5, the exclusion of the subject
pronoun is natural and expected in the given context.
5.4.1.2.2 Ellipsis of anaphoric object pronoun
In ergative-absolutive clauses, it is the object that is represented in the verb’s
person-number ending, whatever the tense. 102 When an object is referenced by a pronoun,
and the context allows, it may be left unmentioned. For example, a person might say, min
dît, ‘I saw,’ in reply to the question, Te biraê min dît?, ‘Did you see my brother?’ The
zero (Ø) ending on the stem dît signifies third person, singular agreement with the
unmentioned object, which refers to the bira, ‘brother.’ If the speaker wanted to include
the object pronoun, ew, ‘him,’ in the reply, he or she would have said, min ew dît, ‘I saw
him.’
However, usage of the object pronoun in this instance may seem emphatic. More
research is needed to see if poets include object pronouns when there is opportunity for
non-utterance, as I found no such situations in the corpus. Additionally, possessing an
etic perspective on the language, such discourse level research would require much time
with native speakers. From the data available, we can surmise that when the context
allows, there does seem to be a tendency in the language to leave object pronouns in
ergative-absolutive clauses unspoken, when permitted by the context. Some of these
instances are shown in examples (253) through (255). The unmentioned object pronouns
102 Some irregular verbs always exhibit ergative agreement.