2023-03

Journal of Experimental Phonetics (Issue : 32)

In Bahdini Kurdish (henceforth, BK), the realisation and the phonetic features of the glottal stop (GS) has not been extensively investigated and there is a debate about its phonemic status. In one hand, it is considered a phoneme that occurs only in a word-initial position. On the other hand, it is not con- sidered a phoneme but optionally produced at the beginning of vowel-initial words and does not affect meaning. The study aims at identifying the realisation of this sound experimentally, analyses its acous- tic features and whether it is affected by parameters such as vowel type, vowel position in the word and stress. The study is based on read speech produced by 10 BK native speakers. Then it is analysed phonetically using Praat to identify the presence/absence of the GS. Then the number of occurrences of the GSs are compared across vowel types, vowel position and stress. The results show that the GS is an epenthetic sound in BK that is inserted by the speakers to avoid onsetless syllables and to avoid vowel clusters. Different phonetic variations of the sound are realized in BK: A clear closure of the glottal stop, intermittent vocal folds vibrations during the GS closure, vocal folds vibrations start sim- ultaneously with the GS release. It appears not to be affected by stress but by position, as it is found more medially in V+V contexts than initially, and vowel quality as it is produced more before low vowels than non-low vowels.

2022-12

Humanities Journal of University of Zakho (HJUOZ) (Issue : 4) (Volume : 10)

Articulation tests record and analyze children’s speech. Theyare used to determine which sounds children can or cannot say or if the speech errors the children produce are developmentally appropriate or they are delayed.The aim of this study was to develop an articulation test for Bahdini Kurdish preschool-agechildren. For this purpose, a picture-naming test was designed to elicit spontaneous single-word responses representing 26 consonants in initial, medial and final positions and 8 vowels in medial positions. Seven experts were asked to review the test and complete a questionnaire. Then, it was presented to 65 normal Bahdini Kurdish speaking children. They were 38 males and 27 females from three different age groups: 3, 4, and 5years old. The children’s responses were recorded and then scored for each correct utterance and picture identification. The results show that there are no significant differences among the experts’ responses which reflect their approval for the test to be a valid tool for collecting the phonetic inventory of the children. There is a significant and high correlation between correct word utterances and picture identification which provesthe content validity of the test. Finally, there are no significant differences between males and females indicatingthat the test is suitable for both genders, while significant differences were found among age groupsin which olderchildren performed better than younger ones. Thus, the test is a valid and a reliable tool that can be applied to collect the phonetic inventory of Bahdini Kurdish speaking children.

2022-06

Koya University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences (Issue : 1) (Volume : 5)

The study investigates the impressions of students at University of Zakho, Kurdistan Region of Iraq, about e- learning during the Covid-19, highlighting some problems resulted from using this e-learning system. Also, the statistical significance of correlations according to gender is calculated. Using qualitative and quantitative methods for data collection, a questionnaire of seven items is utilized via google document and sent to nearly 1000 participants (males and females) via social media and online platforms. Only 752 responses returned. The data were interpreted and analyzed by Excel sheets and SPSS software. As there was statistical significance in gender differences, the results showed that the majority of the participants do not view e-learning as a fun process for their education and they have no willingness to use it for their future studies. In addition, more than half of the participants agree that (1) e-learning is costly; (2) lectures are better understood in classrooms; (3) e-learning is not adequate because of the internet and electricity outage; and (4) e-learning leads to some eye problems and headaches. Generally, knowing the students’ impressions about using e-learning for their education will be helpful for the university administrators, educational policy makers, teachers to determine the students’ genuine needs, motivation or challenges. This will be helpful to gain an understanding of e-learning in Kurdistan Region of Iraq, to cope with challenges involved in the process of e-learning, and develop approaches to solve the problems resulted from.

2022-04

Academic Journal of Newroz University (Issue : 1) (Volume : 11)

Verbal interaction is organized into sequences of utterances which are understood according to their sequential context. One of them is the opening sequences which are the initiation chunks of speech in order to start a conversation. Much work has been done on the opening sequences in other languages, whereas these sequences have not received attention by researchers in Kurdish. The study is the first attempt to identify the structure of the opening sequences in one variety of Kurdish, namely, Behdini. Besides, it will show the forms of each sequence identified in the structure and how the structures and sequences vary according to gender. The study is based on the analysis of the opening sequences of 77 radio phone call-in conversations. The data has been analysed qualitatively and quantitatively using the conversation analysis approach. Two structures of opening sequences in Kurdish are identified depending on whether the call is known or unknown. For the caller-unknown conversations, the structure is summons answer, greeting, how are you sequence, identification, and greetings sending/ compliments/ guest welcoming sequence. In the caller-known, identification sequence is not realized. The study identified the common forms of each sequence realized in the structure of the opening sequences. Some gender variations are realized in the structure of the opening sequences, their sequences and forms. The study is important because it will help identify language-specific conventions of opening sequences and to which extent they vary according to social factors. Besides, it will enrich the typological studies of opening sequences by adding another language-specific convention of opening sequences to the ones already investigated and to pave the way to formulate general or even universal principles of organisation of talk in interaction.

2021-12

JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE STUDIES (Issue : 43) (Volume : 14)

Loanwords are the words that are borrowed from other languages to be incorporated into a recipient language to be part of its linguistic system. Using loanwords is influenced by different factors and differs from one language or dialect to another. The current study compares the usage of loanwords in the written texts of two dialects of Kurdish, namely, Northern Kurmanji dialect (NK) and Middle Kurmanji dialect (MK) to identify which dialect uses loanwords more frequently. ìAvroî and ìKhabatî, the two local dailies, are used representing NK and MK respectively. The content of some of their articles are analysed according to the topics, i.e. politics, economics, law, science, arts and sport and the loanwords of each topic are categorized according to the number of occurrence, donor language and part of speech. The results reveal that MK dialect uses loanwords more frequ- ently compared to NK. There are inter and intra-dialectal variation according to factors such as the topic and donor language while no differences have been noted according to the part of speech. Thus, the current study reveals that adopting and using loanwords are significantly influenced by different factors such as dialect, topic, linguistic category and donor language.

2019-12

Advances in Language and Literary Studies (Issue : 4) (Volume : 10)

This study investigates the students’ perceptions towards literature integration in language learning in the English Language Departments (henceforth ELD) at Duhok and Zakho universities. Knowledge about students’ perceptions will influence their interest and language learning development. Literature is an important part of the syllabus at most ELDs in the Kurdish universities. Although studies have shown the importance of the learners’ perception, no studies have examined the students’ perceptions towards their literature modules in the ELDs at the Kurdish universities. The study is based on the responses of 268 undergraduate students to a questionnaire consisting of close-ended, multiple choices (quantitative data) and open-ended questions (qualitative data). The quantitative data is analyzed using the statistical analysis software (SPSS) and the qualitative using thematic analysis. The majority of the students have positive perceptions towards literature integration in their study program. They show that it contributes to the their language development in general and their vocabulary, speaking and reading skills in particular and novel is selected as the most beneficial literary genre for language development. Additionally, literature contributes to develop the learners’ cultural awareness in general and helps to identify the similarities and differences between the English culture and the learners’ own culture. The study also shows the contribution of literature to the learners’ personal growth in terms of active participation in class activities, increasing their critical thinking and analytical skills and helps them to understand theirs and other people’s experiences. The students are satisfied with the selected literary texts and topics and to some extent with the teaching methods which are mostly teacher led, but they suggest more students’ involvement. However, students face some difficulties, mostly language difficulty, that need to be taken into consideration. Thus, it is recommended that literature should be kept in the ELDs curriculum and teachers and administrators should make students aware of the value of the literature, understand the students needs and work to overcome the problems they encounter in literature study. Generally, knowing the students’ perceptions towards literature classes will be helpful for the researchers, educational policy makers and the language teachers to determine English language learners’ genuine needs, motivation or challenges and issues in relation to the use of literary texts as teaching materials and to develop a suitable teaching approach to use the literary texts.

2017-09

Humanities journal of University of Zakho (Volume : 5)

Languages vary in terms of whether they are stress or non-stress accent languages. Concerning whether Northern Kurdish is a stress or non-stress accent language, there is no experimental investigation which has ever examined the phonetic correlates of word-level prominence. This study aims to establish the acoustic correlates of word-level prominence in Northern Kurdish. It is based on the production of pairs of segmentally parallel syllables occurring in stressed vs. unstressed positions. The materials are produced by 30 native speakers. Measurements of f0, duration and intensity of the test syllables in each token were extracted. The hypothesis is that if Northern Kurdish is a stress-accent language, the values of all the variables will be higher in the stressed condition than in the unstressed condition, whereas if it is a non-stress-accent language, only f0 values are predicted to be higher in the stressed condition. The results indicate that Northern Kurdish is a stress-accent language in that it employs both tonal and non-tonal correlates, especially duration, cues to word-level prominence. Additionally, stress influences the durations of the segmental material of the stressed syllables, i.e. consonants and vowels.

2017-08

European Scientific Journal (Volume : 13)

In the study of syntax, a special attention is given to the verb as the main constituent in the structure of the predicate. However, there exists some constructions in which a noun, adjective or an adverb are the main constituents in the predicate. In Kurdish, there is a debate in the literature on the analysis of these verbless constructions. On one hand, they are considered nominal sentences which do not contain a verbal element. On the other hand, they are considered small verbal sentences in which the agreement markers on the predicate act as verbal element. The study is an attempt to analyse the structure of these verbless constructions within the framework of minimal program (Chomsky, 1995) in one of the widely spoken variety of Kurdish, Northern Kurmanji, Bahdinani subdialect. It contributes to resolve the existent debate in Kurdish linguistics concerning the structure of these constructions. Additionally, it contributes to the typological variation in the syntactic properties of these constructions in Kurdish.

2016-09

European Scientific Journal (Volume : 12)

It is generally believed that stress in Kurdish is word-final. However, previous work and closer examination in our study revealed a number of exceptions to this pattern which can be analysed in a more coherent approach. Our study proposes a unified analysis of regular and irregular stress patterns in Kurdish. We investigated one of the widely spoken dialects of Kurdish, namely Northern Kurmanji. The study analyses the stress-assignment rule on the basis of a framework of prosodic phonology that divides the representation of speech into hierarchically organised units. These units delimit the application of different phonological patterns. Contrary to previous accounts, we propose the phonological word as the domain of stress assignment rules and a number of other phonological processes such as glide insertion, resyllabification, vowel deletion, vowel shortening that affect stress assignment. Additionally, we propose a cyclic analysis for rule application. Cases of stress rule application violation are considered as instances of stress-shift which are conditioned by different phonological and syntactical factors. Other cases of violations are accounted for by using recursive structure and phrase stress rule.

2016-07

European Scientific Journal (Volume : 12)

The study deals with the analysis of repetitions, their phonetic structures and functions as demonstrated in the organisation of talk-in-interaction in Kurdish. The repetitions are described as complex phonetic objects whose design has received no previous attention and are neglected by the scholars in the fields of discourse and conversation analysis studies in Kurdish. The main aims of the study are to identify the phonetic characteristics of repetitions in Kurdish, their functions and the relationship between differences in the phonetic features and their functions in speech. The study integrates the methodology of conversation analysis and impressionistic and instrumental phonetics to show how repetitions in a conversation are managed by the participants. The data used in this study comes from different types of natural speech, namely, face to face conversations, radio-phone-ins of Northern Kurdish. 27 cases of self repetitions have been analysed and they are lexical, phrasal and clausal with a range of syntactic forms. The study contributes to the theoretical issues of the prosody-pragmatics interface and participants’ understanding of naturally occurring discourse. It is hoped that such a study may contribute to language and information processing by providing a detailed analysis of patterns and functions of repetition in social interaction.

2016-05

European Scientific Journal (Volume : 12)

One of the strategies used as a hiatus resolution is glide insertion. Previous Kurdish phonological works involve only a description of glide insertion in one dialect neglecting the segmental context. This study provides an analysis of glide insertion in word-medial vowel clusters in Kurdish and it is the first attempt to analyse the effects of dialect and segmental context. The speech material includes a set of words consisting of a stem plus a suffix with different vowel sequences at their boundaries. It is produced by four native speakers from four Kurdish speaking areas. The data analysis involves word transcription, their segmentation and the comparison of vowel sequences within and across the subdialects. The results indicate that glide insertion is not the only strategy used as word medial hiatus resolution, but it depends on the segmental context and dialect. Generally, the vowel hiatus is resolved by /j/ insertion. Vowel deletion is also used obligatorily in some segmental contexts when the second vowel in a sequence is /i/ and also when there are identical vowels in a sequences. Dialectal variations are observed in some vowel sequences in which /j/ insertion and vowel deletion both are used and when the first vowels in the sequence are the high back vowels in that /j/ and /w/ insertions are used. The findings suggests that /j/ insertion is the default strategy to resolve word-medial vowel clusters in Kurdish, the insertion of /w/ or vowel deletion are other strategies which are limited to some dialects and vowel sequences.

2011-12

Journal of Duhok University (Volume : 2014)

This paper deals with the formal style, its uses and features in Northern Kurmanji (NK) Kurdish. The formal style is one of the social styles of language. It is apparently used among people who are not familiar with each other and in various socially formal situations: formal conversations, religious, political and legal contexts, education, mass media, instructions, notices, official documents and so on. Besides, the formal style of speech is characterized by some features: grammatical features such as the use of passive voice, complete and complex sentences, impersonality and nominalization; vocabulary features like the use of formal words and expressions, the use of euphemism, and the use of learned vocabulary to show the speaker's educational background, honorifics, politeness markers; semantic features, for instance, objectivity, explicity, indirect speech acts and the like. The paper falls into three sections. Section one briefly introduces the notion of formal style, aims of the study , scope of the study, the source of the data and the models used in data analysis and the value of the study. Section two sheds light on the formal style and its uses in Northern Kurmanji. Section three is devoted to the study of grammatical, vocabulary and semantic features of the formal style. Finally, the paper presents the main points and conclusions arrived at through out the research.

2009-12

Journal of Duhok University (Volume : 1)

The present study deals with consonant clusters in the Northern Kurmanji dialect of Kurdish especially the dialect spoken by the Kurdish people in Duhok. A consonant cluster is a sequence of consonants which come together without any intervening vowels. Languages phonotactics differ as to what consonant clusters they permit. In Kurdish, a few studies tackle the clusters the language permits. It is important to know the type of clusters Kurdish permits in order to differentiate it from other languages. The main finding of the study is that Kurdish permits consonants clusters, but it does not allow more than two consecutive consonants in one syllable. The study falls into three sections. Section one is an introductory one. It gives a brief introduction about the subject of the research, statement of the problem, aim and scope of the study, nature of the data, data analysis and the value of the study. Section two tackles the definitions of the syllable, its types and structure because most phonotactic analyses are based on the syllable. Section three deals with the consonant clusters in Kurdish and the possible consonant clusters in the onset and coda parts of the syllable.