Magin_Edward-thesis

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pronoun wî, referring to Qazî, a figure in Kurdish history, is missing after the preposition
bo, ‘for.’ It could have been included; however, inclusion would have given Sindî too
many syllables for the line.
(258) tazî ya Qazî jibîr_ne-k-in bo (wî) bi-k-in (BS4:23)
funeral EZ.F Qazî forget_NEG-do.PRS-3PL for (him) IRR-do.PRS-3PL
şînî her sal
mourning every year
‘Don’t forget the funeral of Qazî, mourn for him every year.’
In Bêhna Gulê, ‘The Smell of the Rose,’ a prose poem, Hizirvan left out the 3OM
pronoun wî, ‘him,’ (or some other noun or noun phrase) after the prepositions li ser,
meaning ‘on.’ As well, another 3OM object pronoun, ‘him,’ a required argument of the
verb berzekirin, ‘hid,’ is not expressed. Since prose poetry is closer to natural language,
this example likely shows how the ellipsis of pronouns―from both prepositional phrases
and object phrases―is a natural occurrence in the language. While English requires both
pronouns, they need not be expressed in certain contexts in Northern Kurdish.
(259) agr-ek boş li ser helkir-in, berzekir-in, 104 (H:6)
fire-INDF large on (him) set.PST-3PL hide.PST-3PL (him)
‘And (they) ignited a massive fire on him (his body), and hid him.’
With this example above, we might conclude that it is the inclusion of anaphoric
pronouns (in certain contexts) that is a tool a poet can use for reaching a desired syllable
count in a poem, as was the case with line 8 of (256) in the previous section.
This study did not investigate identifying other places in the corpus where
anaphoric object personal pronouns could have been excluded. Inclusion of an anaphor
may often have some pragmatic purpose. Determining the various contexts for inclusion
and exclusion was beyond the scope of this paper. Table 23 provides some additional
104 From my direct correspondence with Denise Bailey (2012), I learned that for past tense, transitive
sentences, there are some situations where agreement with the object does not always apply when the
subject of the clause is a third person plural and left unexpressed. The plural -in ending is also commonly
used when the subject is impersonal, as it is in this entire poem.