A Typological Description of Word Order-Rules in Kurdish (Ilami Dialect)

Abstract

In this paper, we try to focus on word order variation in the light of the Linearization Hierarchy in Ilami dialect. Several hierarchies have been suggested in this regard. It should be noted that this topic has been discussed in different languages, including English and Persian. We will try to show how Kurdish deal with these so-called “universal hierarchies” and to what extent they are observed in practice. We will see that although Ilami observes some of these rules considerably, asymmetries are also found in this dialect of Kurdish. Nevertheless, mismatches do not necessarily result in producing ungrammatical structures, but only marked ones.