Verb "bu:n", "to be" in Kurdish

The current study aims to investigate stative lexical aspect of Sourani Kurdish predicates made by adjectives and copula bu:n, ‘to be’, applying binary classification of Smith (1997/1991). The findings reveal that the predicates are not always stative experiencing a kind of aspect-conversion influenced by two factors. The first factor is the copula bu:n, ‘to be’, which is a homonym with two different meanings, bu:n, ‘to be’, and ‘to become’ The predicates which are the result of adjectives and copula in the meaning of ‘to become’ are always non-stative and stage-level. Besides, the data show that all predicates which are the result of combining adjectives and copula bu:n in the meaning of ‘to be’ are not always stative influenced by the content of the adjectives in the structure. According to adjective classification by Schmitt (1972) and Bach (1978), the predicates made by the adjectives belonging to the classifying group and bu:n, ‘to be’, always make stative individual-stage predicates. However, the ones belonging to the qualifying group produce non-stative stage-level predicates.