A Study of Conversion in Kalhori Kurdish

Conversion is the process by which the lexical category of items changes without any change in form. The present study is an attempt to investigate the conversion process in Kalhori Kurdish. This study aims to determine the lexical categories which participate in conversion processes and to show the directionality of them. Furthermore, this study intends to critically evaluate the ability to explanation Kalhori Kurdish database on both Dirven (1999) event schema metonymy and Libere (1992, 2004, 2005) relisting approaches. The data were collected from two Kurdish dictionaries of Karimpur’s xowrhalaat (1380) and Jalilijan’s Baashur (1385). To detect lexical categories, first of all, the identical processes to conversion were discovered and deleted. Then, based on the semantic criterion, the direction of the conversion process is found out. After that, data were analyzed within metonymy and relisting frameworks. The results illustrated that in Kalhori Kurdish, Noun, adjective, and verb are three lexical categories that participate in the conversion process. moreover, the directionality of conversion processes is like the conversion from noun to verb, conversion from adjective to verb, and conversion from verb to noun. The conclusion also indicates that Dirven’s (1999) event schema metonymy can explain the data of Kalhori Kurdish in the conversion process.