Linguistics
Saeed Labbafan; Mohammad Dabirmoghaddam
Abstract
The main purpose of this study is providing a grammatical description of the agreement system in Khaniki language, based on empirical data. This variant belongs to South-Western Iranian languages. This language, as well as many other Iranian languages, is an endangered language. This language is spoken ...
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The main purpose of this study is providing a grammatical description of the agreement system in Khaniki language, based on empirical data. This variant belongs to South-Western Iranian languages. This language, as well as many other Iranian languages, is an endangered language. This language is spoken in the village [xɑnik], locally called [xunek]. In this paper, the description of the agreement types has been done based on Comrie (1978). In the descriptions, it will eventually turn out that Khaniki has grammaticalized a split alignment system sensitive to grammatical features of 'tense', 'aspect', 'person' in verbs and also the 'semantic feature of the subject'. In clauses containing «+present» verbs, whether transitive or intransitive, the agreement system will be 'Nominative-Accusative' and in clauses containing «+past», «+perfect», «+third person», and «+psyche» verbs, whether transitive or intransitive, the agreement system will be Non-'Nominative-Accusative'. In the 'Nominative-Accusative' system, subjects are always marked by inflectional agreement suffixes appended to verbs and in the Non-'Nominative-Accusative' system, which can be sub-divided to a neutral or tri-oblique type in this language, oblique agreement clitics will mark A, S, and O.
