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Appendix V

The construction of sentences having a transitive verb in a past tense
From the Book:
A Kurdish-English Dictionary
By:
Taufiq Wahby, C. J. Edmonds
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English
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  1. The past tenses of all transitive verbs are passive in meaning.
  2. In a sentence the agent is expressed by a pronoun in the affix form: -im, -iṭ, -y, -man, -tan, -yan. If there is also a noun or an independent pronoun denoting the agent, this is placed separately at the beginning of the sentence but is not constructed as an integral part of it.

  3. If the subject is expressed by a noun or independent pronoun this is placed as far forward as possible and the pronoun denoting the agent is affixed to it:

    • Bextyar, desesiṟeke-y kirdewe—the handkerchief was untied by him, Bakhtyar—Bakhtyar untied the handkerchief.
    • Bextyar, ke eme-y bîst—when this was heard by him, Bakhtyar—when Bakhtyar heard this.

  4. The noun or independent pronoun denoting the person or thing indirectly affected by the action may be constructed as the subject; in this case the pronoun denoting the agent is affixed to the word denoting the person or thing directly affected:

    • Baram, bang-y kirdîn—we were invited by him, Bahrain—Bahrain invited us.
    • kaghezeke-tan diṟîwim—I have had (my) letter tom up by you—you have tom up my letter.
    • hîch deng-u-basêk-iṭ bo negêrawimet-ewe—I have had no piece of news related to (me) by you—you have not related any piece of news to me.
    • serburdeke-m bo gêṟayewe—he had the occurrence related to (him) by me—I related the occurrence to him.
    • pareyêk y zor-y lê wer girtîn—we had a large sum of money taken from (us) by him—he received a large sum of money from us.
    • karekerêk y zor-im tê xist—it had put into (it) a large number of maidservants by me—I put a large number of maidservants there.
    • hîch-yan neḍam ê—I had nothing given to (me) by them—they gave me nothing.
    • fêḻ-iṭ legeḻa kirdîn—we had a trick played with (us) by you—you played a trick on us.
    • em karesate-man besera hêna—he had this calamity brought upon (him) by us—we brought this calamity upon him.

  5. If the sentence contains no noun or independent pronoun denoting the person or thing directly affected, the pronoun denoting the agent may be affixed to:

    1. the complement of the predicate;
    2. an adverb or adverbial phrase;
    3. any of the short adverbs used in the formation of compound verbs, viz. da, heḻ, ṟa, ṟo, wer, or a preposition in the absolute form (lê, pê, tê, and bo);
    4. the negative prefix ne- or the tense and mood particles e- and bi-.
    Examples:
    • fêr y kurdî-yan kirdim—I was taught Kurdish by them—they taught me Kurdish.
    • be cinoke-man zanî—he was taken for a jinni by us—we took him for a jinni.
    • leser erzeke-y ṟa xist—it was spread out on the floor by him—he spread it out on the floor.
    • chenḍ car-im wutûwe—how often has it been said by me—how often have I said?
    • wa-m zanîbu ke ...—it had been thought thus by me that ...—I had thought that ... .
    • dergawan, pê-y wutim—I had said to (me) by him, the doorkeeper—the doorkeeper said to me.
    • ṟa-yan kêsha ye derewe—he was dragged out by them—they dragged him out.
    • ne-man-diṟîbu—it had not been tom by us—we had not tom it.
    • bi-tan-girtinaye—if they had been taken by you—if you had taken them.

  6. If there is in the sentence no word or phrase of the kinds set out above to which the pronoun denoting the agent can be affixed it is inserted into the body of the verb immediately before the inflexion (except that of the 3rd person singular, which follows the inflexion):

    • ṟencandû-tan-în—we have been offended by you—you have offended us.
    • kusht-yan—he was killed by them— they killed him.
    • cerdekan, girtibu-yan-im—I had been captured by them, the brigands—the brigands had captured me.
    • cerdeke, girtibum-y—I had been captured by him, the brigand—the brigand had captured me.

      • but with the postposition ê:

    • xuwa, ḍa-y-m ê—I had it given to (me) by Him, God—God gave it to me.
  7. Passives having the infinitive ending in -ran (-rê) and conjugated in all tenses like ordinary intransitive verbs are generally used when no agent is mentioned; the agent may however be mentioned with the compound preposition lelayen ‘by’. On the other hand a transitive verb with the pronominal affix of the 3rd person plural is often used in a quite general sense so that kujra and kusht-yan would give much the same meaning, ‘he was killed by a person or persons unknown’.