Case and the Syntax of Argument Indexation: Sorani Kurdish and Beyond

by Faruk Akkus, David Embick, Mohammed A. Salih

Overview

This book presents an analysis of argument indexation, the process by which arguments in a clause are coindexed with grammatical markers that bear their features. The main case study is based on varieties of Sorani Kurdish (in the Iranian language family), whose indexation properties interact with an alignment split of the type often called 'split Ergative.' From this, the authors develop a more general theory that can be applied to many other languages. A key line of argument is that agreement and clitic movement operations target specific cases, in a process called 'Case Targeting'. The approach further hypothesizes that case labels like 'Nominative', 'Ergative', and so on are shorthand for decomposed feature bundles. It is these features that are targeted by syntactic operations (agreement and movement). In addition to requiring Case Targeting, the analysis of Sorani implies that syntactic operations (agreement, clitic movement) and their morphophonological reflexes may be mismatched: agreement and movement can both produce affixes and clitics, contrary to many views of morphosyntax/morphophonology relations. The book offers a detailed exploration of the implications of this approach, particularly for theories of case assignment.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198962281
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/30/2025
Series:	Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Faruk Akkuş, Assistant Professor of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts Amherst,David Embick, Professor of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania,Mohammed A. Salih, Independent Researcher

Faruk Akkuş is Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research is at the intersection of syntax, morphology, and linguistic fieldwork, with a focus on endangered and understudied languages or varieties. He specializes in Arabic varieties, particularly the so-called peripheral varieties, and Iranian languages, as well as Turkish.

David Embick is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. His research in theoretical linguistics concentrates on syntactic approaches to morphology, and their connections with other parts of grammar, including phonology and argument/event structure. Other research interests include the architecture of the language faculty, experimental approaches to lexical access and representation, and the use of neuroimaging and experimental techniques to examine language impairments in different clinical child populations.

Mohammed A. Salih is an independent researcher and consultant, and he holds a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication. He taught Sorani Kurdish at UPenn for two consecutive years, the first such course taught at the university.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction2. Theoretical background and preliminaries3. Sorani Kurdish: The basics4. Alignment and indexation in transitive (and intransitive) clauses5. Alignment and indexation beyond simple (in)transitives6. DiscussionAppendix A: Key tablesAppendix B: Verb paradigms