previous article in this issue | next article in this issue |
Preview first page |
Document Details : Title: The Contribution of Early Christian Vernacular Poetry from Northern Iraq to Neo-Aramaic Dialectology Subtitle: Preliminary Remarks on the Verbal System Author(s): MENGOZZI, Alessandro Journal: ARAM Periodical Volume: 24 Date: 2012 Pages: 25-40 DOI: 10.2143/ARAM.24.0.3009250 Abstract : The language of early Christian Neo-Aramaic poetry from northern Iraq (Alqosh and Telkepe, seventeenth century) has distinctive features that differ from the modern dialects. In the present paper, I shall examine the verbal system, listing the archaic verbal paradigms, which are attested in the early poetry (e.g., preterites with incorporated 1st- and 2nd-person objects; intransitive preterites with direct verbal endings) and are marginal in the verbal morphology of the modern dialects. On the other hand a number of verbal constructions involving the use of auxiliary verbs and nominal verbal forms (past participle, preposition b- + infinitive) are vital in the modern dialects, but virtually absent from the poetic language of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. |