Kurdish grammar has many inflections, with prefixes and suffixes added to roots to express grammatical relations and to form words.
Among all modern Iranian languages, only Yaghnobi and Kurdish are ergative, with respect to both case-marking and verb-agreement. [1] There are general descriptions of ergativity in Kurdish, [2] [3] as well as in specific forms of Kurdish, such as Sorani [4] and Kurmanji. [5]
Kurmanji and Sorani Kurdish have a split-ergative system. Transitive verbs show nominative/accusative marking in the present tense, and ergative marking in the past tense. [6]
Ezafe is used with nouns to indicate possession. Ezafe (-y) joins the possessive noun with its possessed noun
jēgā-y pāsā = the king's place (Lit: place of king)
Ezafe is also used alongside pronouns to show possession. Ezafe (-y) joins the possessor pronoun with its possessed noun. [6]
jēgā-y min = my place (Lit: place of me)
| Central Kurdish [7] | Southern Kurdish [8] | Kurmanji [9] | Gorani [10] | Zazaki [11] | Talysh [12] [13] | Avestan [14] | Parthian [15] | Middle Persian [15] | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
no distinction of nominative and oblique | nominative | |||||||||
| 1st person | singular | min | min | ez | min | ez | az | azəm | az | an |
| plural | ême | îme | em | ême | ma | əmə | ahma- (accusative) | amāh | amāh | |
| 2nd person | singular | to | ti | tu, ti | to | ti | tı | tvəm | tu | to |
| plural | êwe | îwe | hûn | şime | şima | şımə | yūšma- (accusative) | aşmāh | aşmāh | |
| 3rd person | singular | ew | ew | ew | ad (masculine) ade (feminine) | o (masculine) a (feminine) | əv | hva- (masculine) hā (feminine) | ho | oy |
| plural | ewane | ewane | ew / ewana | adê | ê | əvon | ? | hawin | oy | |
| Kurmanji [16] | Zazaki [17] | Parthian [15] | Middle Persian [15] | Talysh [13] [18] |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Oblique | accusative | |||
| min | mi(n) | man | man | mıni |
| te | to | to | to | tıni |
| wî | ey | ho | oy | əvi |
| wê | ay | ho | – | - |
| me | ma | amāh | amāh | əməni |
| we | şıma | aşmāh | aşmāh | şıməni |
| wan | inan | hawin | awêşān | əvoni |
Because the stress is distinctive in Kurdish, the acute diacritics (á) are used to denote the stressed syllables (normally not used in Kurdish) ( Thackston 2006a ).
Kurdish verbs agree with their subjects in person and number. They have the following major characteristics:
| Infinitive | Ends in -ín (consonant stems), -î́n (î-stems), -án (a-stems), or -û́n (û-stems). |
|---|---|
| Past participle |
|
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