Argument-adjunct distinction in Kurmanji Kurdish

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the status of a number of constituents in Muş Kurmanji (MK), namely postverbal goals, certain adpositional phrases, and the nominal element of noun-verb complex predicates which fall in between argument and adjunct categories according to the argument-adjunct bipartite classification in syntactic theory. It explores the status of these constituents in the event structure and argument structure of verbs in MK. It proposes that the majority of the noun-verb complex predicates in MK are like unergatives à la Hale and Keyser (2002). They are underlyingly transitive structures where an agentive (transitive) light verb incorporates into its nominal object, and the noun element of these complex predicates checks the case of transitive LV as if it were its object. Furthermore, it focuses on the status of postverbal goals and certain adpositional phrases in MK arguing for a relation between the morphological form of the constituents and their status as encoded in the verb’s meaning; that is, structural participants are realized with case morphology while constant participants are introduced with adpositions. The data further suggests that there are certain verb classes in MK which pattern alike with respect to argument realization properties, pointing to the existence of certain event types. Based on this observation, it proposes that the verb groups patterning alike in MK project similar simplex (e.g. vGO, vBE, vDO) or complex event types (e.g. vDO+vBE, vDO+vGO), and the event participants are introduced either within the event domain and/or through event introducing projections such as VoiceP and ApplP.