The Comparative and Contrastive Studies of English and Kurdish (Kurmanji) Verb Tenses

Year 2016, Volume: 1 Issue: 5, 82 - 110, 01.12.2016

Nesim Sönmez Resul Geyik

Abstract

Our objective in this paper is to compare and contrast the English and KurdishKurmanjî verb tenses. Though both languages are in the same language family, the similiarities and the differences between them do exist. When a learner initiates learning one of the languages mentioned above, with no doubt, the similarities facilitates the learning, whereas the differences complicate the learning period and the process. The paper starts with the definition of the concepts related to the comparative and contrastive studies. It then goes on to discuss the history of the comparative and contrastive studies in English and Kurdish studies. The comparison will be implemented in terms of syntax and the usage of the tenses. First, the common samples will be chosen and be compared. It can be said that as a method definition, comparison, evaluation and guess stages will be used. Even though Kurmanci dialect has been used, examples obtained from Sorani and other Kurmanji dialects have also been dealt with. The formulas for forming the verb tenses, the usage of the tenses have also been drawn so that the readers can see the usage of the tense in a clear way. Then the samples for each usage have been presented to emphasize and show it clearly. Having no former studies of this nature has brought about some problems in terms of methodology, however it gave rise to an original and a free approach to carry out. In the result part of the article, the results obtained through the usage of the tenses, syntax, sentence syntax and the approach to both languages are of utmost significance

Keywords

English, Kurdish, comparison, tense usage, target language