Ergativity and related issues in Kurdish morphosyntax

Dozent/in:

Geoffrey Haig

Angaben:

Seminar, 2 SWS, benoteter Schein, ECTS: 8, Gaststudierendenverzeichnis, Studium Generale, Erweiterungsbereich, Seminar für das Aufbaumodul 2 (6 ECTS) sowie das Vertiefungsmodul (8 ECTS) im BA-NF "Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft" sowie für das Mastermodul 1 "Systemlinguistik" im MA "General Linguistics"

Termine:

Do, 12:30 - 14:00, OK8/02.04

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

• The lecture will be in English.
• FlexNow-Anmeldung ab dem 01.04.

ECTS-Informationen:

• Aufbaumodul: 6 ECTS, Hausarbeit mit einem Mindestumfang von 10 Seiten
• Vertiefungsmodul: 8 ECTS, Hausarbeit mit einem Mindestumfang von 14 Seiten
• im Mastermodul 1 gilt ebenfalls eine benotete schriftliche Hausarbeit (Umfang nach Absprache) als Leistungsnachweis

Inhalt:

‘Kurdish’ is a cover term for a bundle of northwest Iranian languages spoken in a region centred on the intersection of today’s Turkey, Iran and Iraq. Two main varieties (or dialects) are distinguished: Northern Kurdish (also known as Kurmanjî), and Central Kurdish (Sorani). In total, there are probably 20 million speakers of Northern and Central Kurdish. In addition, a poorly-defined group known as Southern Kurdish is also recognized. Two other languages or language clusters are sometimes also included within ‘Kurdish’: Zazaki, and Gorani.

Although Kurdish is closely related to Persian (between perhaps 60-75% shared cognates in the CoBL list of basic lexicon), it has retained certain features that characterized Old and early Middle Iranian, but have been entirely lost in Persian. These include a gender distinction on nouns, a remnant inherited case marker, and a tense-based split in alignment: the agreement and case-marking associated with past transitive clauses is distinct from that found in the rest of the grammar. The latter feature has often been discussed under the heading ‘ergativity’, or ‘split ergativity’, but for various reasons it is preferable to use a more neutral label, such as ‘tense-based alignment split’.

Outside of past transitive clauses, Kurdish syntax is relatively simple, and quite similar to Persian. In this course we will take a look at some of the theoretically interesting aspects of the past transitive (‘ergative’ or ‘non-accusative’) structures in Northern and in Central Kurdish, focussing on case and agreement patterns. There is a growing literature on these topics, though of somewhat uneven quality; see Haig (2017b, in German) for a brief overview, and Haig & Öpengin (2014) for a more general overview of Kurdish.

Empfohlene Literatur:

References (general)
Haig, Geoffrey. 2017. Linguistik des Kurdischen. In: Ludwig Paul (ed.) Handbuch der Iranistik, Band 2. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 291-297.

Haig, Geoffrey and Ergin Öpengin. 2014. Kurdish: A critical research overview. Journal of Kurdish studies 2 (2), 99-122.

Linguistic fieldwork: documenting the West Armenian varieties of rural Anatolia

Dozentinnen/Dozenten:

Elke Hartmann, Geoffrey Haig, Laurentia Schreiber

Angaben:

Seminar, 2 SWS, ECTS: 5, Modulstudium

Termine:

Mi, 8:15 - 9:45, MG2/01.02

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

Diese Veranstaltung ist belegbar für

• Elite-MA Cultural Studies of the Middle East/Kulturwissenschaften des Vordern Orients: PLing3 Language documentation and analysis oder PLing4 Fieldwork
• MA-General Linguistics Modul 3 „Sociolinguistics of Minority Languages“ (8 ECTS) oder Modul 4 “Linguistic Research Methods” (10 ECTS)

No special knowledge of Armenian is required, but we expect students to be willing to acquire the basics. A knowledge of at least the traditional categories of grammar is expected, and knowledge of Turkish would be an advantage, though is not mandatory. The course will involve travel to Berlin at least once; arrangements will be finalized at the beginning of term.

Inhalt:

Up until the beginning of the 20th Century, Armenian was among the most widely-spoken languages across Anatolia. Today, the only viable community in situ are the Hemshinli (also known as Homshetsma) in the eastern Black Sea region, who converted to Islam at least two centuries ago. However, in the diaspora, scattered speakers do remain from Christian communities from other parts of Anatolia. This seminar aims at compiling a selection of language materials from the spoken vernacular of West Armenian (as opposed to the standard written language widely used in publishing and education in the Armenian diaspora), and making it available as a joint documentary project, preserving a record of a rapidly disappearing cultural memory. Students will thus have an opportunity to acquire an understanding of West Armenian language and culture in its historical context, and to apply the techniques of modern language documentation (recording, transcription, presentation of language material).
The course is jointly organized by Prof. Hartmann, an expert on West Armenian culture and history, and a native speaker of the language, Prof. Haig, an expert on language documentation and analysis, together with Laurentia Schreiber, who is a PhD researcher on linguistic minorities of Turkey. After a brief introduction to the historical and cultural background of the West Armenian communities in todayʼs Turkey, and a short linguistic introduction to West Armenian, we will begin working on speech material gathered with diaspora speakers from Berlin, and (hopefully) with material from Hemshinli speakers now living in Istanbul. The aim is to create a documentary record, including recorded texts, and short grammar sketch, embedded in the framework of a larger project on the history of the Armenian culture in West Armenia.

Empfohlene Literatur:

Haig, Geoffrey. 2017. Western Asia: East Anatolia as a transition zone. In: Hickey, Raymond (ed.) The Cambridge Handbook of Areal Linguistics, 396-423. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Himmelmann, Nikolaus. 2006. Language documentation: What is it and what is it good for? In: Gippert, Jost, Nikolaus Himmelmann and Ulrike Mosel (eds.) Essentials of language documentation. Berlin: Mouton, 1-30. Martirosyan, Hrach. to appear. The Armenian dialects. To appear as Ch. 2.1 in: Haig, Geoffrey and Geoffrey Khan (eds.) The languages and linguistics of Western Asia: an areal perspective. Berlin: Mouton. [pre-publication pdf available to course participants) Vaux, Bert. 1997. Ethnographic materials from the Muslim Hemshinli. Annual of Armenian Linguistics 17. Vahé Tachjian (ed.), Ottoman Armenians. Life, Culture, Society, Vol. 1, Berlin 2014 Elke Hartmann, Armenisches Leben im Osmanischen Reich vor 1915: Zwischen Hoffnung und Gefährdung, in: Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung, Dossier: Aghet – Genozid an den Armeniern (26.04.2016); http://www.bpb.de/geschichte/zeitgeschichte/genozid-an-den-armeniern/218100/armenier-im-osmanischen-reich

Linguistische Werkstatt

Dozent/in:

Geoffrey Haig

Angaben:

Oberseminar, 2 SWS, ECTS: 8

Termine:

Mi, 18:00 - 20:00, U11/00.16
Einzeltermin am 4.7.2018, 18:00 - 20:00, U5/01.22

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

Sprachwissenschaftliches Hauptseminar Leistungsnachweis: nach Vereinbarung

Inhalt:

Die Veranstaltung richtet sich an Examenskandidat(inn)en. Es befasst sich mit Forschungsfragen aus allen Bereichen der Sprachwissenschaft in Form von Arbeitsberichten aus Abschlussarbeiten, Dissertationen und Forschungsprojekten.

Research colloquium

Dozent/in:

Geoffrey Haig

Angaben:

Kolloquium, 2 SWS, benoteter Schein, ECTS: 6, Englischsprachig, Kolloquium für das Forschungsmodul im MA "General Linguistics"

Termine:

Di, 16:15 - 17:45, OK8/02.04

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

• The lecture will be in English
• FlexNow-Anmeldung ab dem 01.04.

Inhalt:

The colloquium is primarily aimed at graduate students (MA and PhD candidates) who are working on a thesis, or are developing their research questions. Students will be expected to present their work, and engage with the other participants and the lecturer in discussions of key concepts in method and theory. Please contact the lecturer via email if you wish to attend, and give an indication of your research interests.
The colloquium is also open to interested linguists of all backgrounds who wish to participate in general exchange of ideas, and we may, depending on the programme, also be able to incorporate additional presentations; please check with the lecturer beforehand.