Is Kurdish an ergative language?

[neutral]

Those Ergative features could be archaic features of the substratum languages(gutian,hurrian,lulubby,kassite....)

http://www.kurdishacademy.org/sites/def ... _bynon.pdf

[linguoboy]

Those Ergative features could be archaic features of the substratum languages(gutian,hurrian,lulubby,kassite....)

http://www.kurdishacademy.org/sites/def ... _bynon.pdf

How early do ergative constructions appear in Kurdish? In the North Indian languages, ergativity is clearly a later development, one absent from Sanskrit and other Old Indic languages. How do you know it isn't also a relatively late development in Kurdish as well?

[neutral]

Except some words and basical phrases I know nothing of Kurdish,but we must keep in mind that Kurdish(or more appropriately Kurdish dialects)is a very lately attested language so perhaps we will never know if ergativity in Kurdish is a later innovation or a result of the influences of substratum languages.
Some archaic proto ie features in Kurdish dialects(as gender)could be an indice of Anatolia being the motherland of proto armeno-indo-iranian.

[linguoboy]

Except some words and basical phrases I know nothing of Kurdish,but we must keep in mind that Kurdish(or more appropriately Kurdish dialects)is a very lately attested language so perhaps we will never know if ergativity in Kurdish is a later innovation or a result of the influences of substratum languages.

We'll certainly never know if we don't even bother to check!

Some archaic proto ie features in Kurdish dialects(as gender)could be an indice of Anatolia being the motherland of proto armeno-indo-iranian.

What's "archaic proto ie" about gender? It's present in virtually all modern Indo-European languages.

[neutral]

What's "archaic proto ie" about gender? It's present in virtually all modern Indo-European languages

You are right though some indo-iranian languages lack genders(Persian as an exemple...)

If the indo-iranian homeland would be eastern Anatolia,the fact that ergativity,among all ie branches,is present soley in the indo-iranian branch would be a proof that ergativety was an inherited feature from the ergative Anatolian substratum languages of Mitanni(and other propable indo-iranian languages of Anatolia such as Lulubby...)ie Hurrite and Urartean.

[linguoboy]

If the indo-iranian homeland would be eastern Anatolia,the fact that ergativity,among all ie branches,is present soley in the indo-iranian branch would be a proof that ergativety was an inherited feature from the ergative Anatolian substratum languages of Mitanni(and other propable indo-iranian languages of Anatolia such as Lulubby...)

It would be proof of no such thing. There's considerably more to demonstrating substratal influence than saying "Language A had this feature, and language B--spoken in roughly the same area thousands of years latter--also has this feature." Linguistic substrata are not geological forces that influence their environment for millennia; it is only at the stage of language shift (a process which is generally complete within a couple of generations) that they play any role in a linguistic variety's development.

That's why I responded to you argument as I did: If ergativity in Indo-Iranian were due to Mitannian influence, one would expect to see it in from the very earliest attestations. But we don't: In Indic, it arises in the Middle Indic period from accusative constructions which were well-attested earlier.

Again, I can't emphasise enough how important it is for you to read an introductory work on historical linguistics before further spamming the board with your incoherent hypotheses.

[neutral]

Again, I can't emphasise enough how important it is for you to read an introductory work on historical linguistics before further spamming the board with your incoherent hypotheses.

What book would you advise me to read please!

[linguoboy]

What book would you advise me to read please!

My personal preference is for R.L. Trask's Historical linguistics.

[Quaere Verum]

Kurdish is by all means an "ergative" language. This linguistic feature is most likely due to a Hurrian background of Kurdish, a fact which also could serve to elucidate the root of the term "Kurd" (archaic forms: kardox, kartox, etc.) that really resemble Georgians national name "Kartveli" by regarding to the fact that Hurrians were possibly of Caucasian origin.