The development of imperfective and subjunctive marking in Hewramî

Abstract

Abstract Contemporary dialects of Goranî (a Northwestern Iranic language spoken in Kurdistan) exhibit considerable variation in the formation of tense-aspect-mood categories. It has long been recognized that compatibility of the indicative/imperfective prefix mi- or the subjunctive prefix bi- with present-tense verb stems is phonologically conditioned. However, all attempts to identify the specific conditioning environments have failed. In this article, we reexamine the diachronic development of these affixes, showing that subsequent sound changes have obscured the original conditioning environment for the retention of these affixes. Early work on Hewramî (the main variety of Goranî) shows how the pattern of verbs that have lost the prefixes has begun to be extended to the verbs that take these prefixes for synchronically opaque reasons. The least frequent of these verbs were the first to begin the process of extension, showing inconsistent marking in these early works. Moreover, younger generations continue this process of extension using many more unmarked verbs compared to older speakers. The findings of this paper have implications for cyclic developments in the domain of tense and aspect.