Nominal linkers in Central Kurdish (Ardalāni variety)

This chapter provides a description of noun phrases in the Ardalāni variety of Sorani Kurdish. In Ardalāni Kurdish, the surface word order within the Noun Phrase is head initial and post-nominal modifiers are linked to the head of the phrase by a linking element called Ezafe (Windfuhr 1989). We show that the realization of Ezafe is phonologically conditioned in Ardalāni, unlike other varieties of Kurdish. However, crucially, we show that in definite contexts, Ezafe obligatorily appears irrespective of the phonological context, and it takes a special definite form.