(Northern) Kurdish Linguistic Features – The Construct Case (Izafe)6 min read

In this post, we continue what we have started in the previous post. Now, we handle, the Construct Case (Izafe) in Northern Kurdish.

The Construct Case (Izafe)

The construct case, often referred to as the construct state, represents a grammatical phenomenon in some languages that occurs mostly in a noun phrase where a noun or proper noun undergoes a morphological change to denote ownership or the state of the noun. This altered or inflicted word form is paired with a subsequent word, a noun, or an adjective that specifies the possessor or the sate. This grammatical phenomenon can be found in many languages like Persian, Kurdish, Arabic, and Hebrew (Comrie 2017; Samvelian 2007; Thackston 2006; Karimi 2007). The English equivalent of construct case in a possessive relationship is the preposition ( of ) (Gutman 2016; Anonby 2022).

The construct case phenomenon in Northern Kurdish is called ravekirin `to clarify’. The Kurdish term for the construct case phenomenon serves the purpose eloquently since the function of construct case is to give more information and clarify the state, number, and gender of someone or something we are talking/writing about. However, we will be using the term Izafe (I/Ezafe/ is derived from the Arabic word إضافة `addition’.} instead, since it is the most widespread term used in the literature when handling the construct case in Kurdish.

The Izafe case in Northern Kurdish is formed with the help of Izafe markers/particles. They are important unstressed suffixes added to the end of the nouns or proper nouns. In its simplest form, the function of the Izafe particle in a noun phrase is to link two words together when there is a relationship between those words. This relationship could be a possessive (between a possessive noun and its possessed noun) or an attributive adjective (between an adjective and the noun it describes) relationship. The table above shows the different Izafe markers, taking into account the number, the gender, and the state of the noun. It is worth noting that with indefinite nouns, the Izafe markers are added after the indefinite markers, as depicted in the second column of the table.

Whilst Northern Kurdish has three Izafe markers, Central Kurdish has only one Izafe marker, which is î ی (Ahmadi 2021; Thackston 2006).
The first word (nomen regens `governing noun’) in the Izafe case could be either a noun or a proper noun. The subsequent word (nomen rectum `governed noun’) must be either a noun, a proper noun, a personal pronoun (in the oblique case), an adjective, or a (multi-word) adverb (Thackston 2006; Tan 2015). In summary, the Izafe case in Northern Kurdish can be found in the following possible situations:

• A noun or proper noun is immediately followed by:
  • another noun or proper noun.
  • an adjective.
  • the reflexive pronoun xwe.
  • possessive pronouns.
  • the relative pronoun ku `that/who/which’
• A noun followed by an adverb.
• An Izafe case from 1 or 2 immediately followed by an unattached Izafe marker (for definite nouns) from the table above that is immediately followed by 1 or 2. This type of Izafe is often referred to as chain Izafe because we have two or more Izafe cases linked together.

Additionally, the Izafe case is not limited to only two nouns. We can have multiple successive nouns where each noun gets the Izafe marker according to its gender and number. However, the last noun or proper noun will get the oblique case marker as explained in our previous post.
Furthermore, in a sequence of nouns connected through the conjunction û `and’, only the last noun gets the Izafe marker. Other nouns will be in the absolute case.

Moreover, the Izafe markers in Northern Kurdish are not strictly bound to a single position. They may appear both as a suffix and as separate particles that create a new Izafe case by linking a previous Izafe case with a noun, proper noun, adjective, or personal pronoun. In this case, Izafe markers for definite nouns are used; this phenomenon is referred to as construct extender because it allows us to extend the Izafe case by adding more adjectives or nouns to the first Izafe case (Thackston 2006). In the following example, we provide a set of example sentences covering the entire spectrum of Izafe cases to guarantee the inclusion of all potential variations.