The event structure of prefixal verbs in Kurmanji Kurdish of Gilan

This paper investigates the event structure of prefixal verbs in Kurmanji Kurdish of Rudbar (located in the south of Gilan province) and discusses the interpretational contribution of derivational prefixes to the event structure of these prefixal verbs. The research data has been gathered by means of interviewing a number of native speakers in the region and the oral fulfillment of a questionnaire. The findings show that derivational prefixes mostly denote a directional concept and make a motion verb. As a consequence, a punctual interpretation is typically developed in their instances, unless the linguistic or situational context triggers an accomplishment (i.e. telic and durative) event type. In the data corpus of this research, only a few stative verbs were found, and we could detect no prefixal verb in the activity event type. Therefore, the prefixal verbs of the Kurmanji of Gilan can exclusively express the three event types of state, achievement and accomplishment in their various meanings. These observations (the dominance of punctual interpretation and the absence of activity events) are probably in line with the typical meaning of prefixal verbs, i.e. the directional movement.