A Cross-Dialect Account of Kurdish Past Tense Categories, with Special Reference to Southern Kurdish

The bulk of studies on the verbal system of Kurdish address alignment and agreement patterns in past transitive constructions, while comparatively little research has been devoted to a general description of Tense, Aspect, and Mood (TAM) distinctions across Kurdish varieties. Starting from the observation that Southern Kurdish (SK) dialects seem to differ in the structure and functioning of certain sections of their verbal system—both reciprocally and in comparison with Northern Kurdish (NK) and Central Kurdish (CK)—this chapter provides an analysis of the subset of tense/aspect forms used in past-time domains, intending to define regional variation and continuity in their formal and functional properties. Comparative remarks will help contextualize preliminary findings on SK in a broader, cross-cluster framework.