Editing Suret language (section)

=== Ergativity ===
Although Aramaic has been a nominative-accusative language historically, [[split ergativity]] in Christian and Jewish Neo-Aramaic languages developed through interaction with ergative [[Iranian languages]], such as [[Kurdish languages|Kurdish]], which is spoken by the Muslim population of the region.<ref>Cf. G. Khan, Ergativity in North Eastern Neo-Aramaic Dialects in: Alter Orient und Altes Testament. Studies in Semitics and General Linguistics Honor of Gideon Goldenberg, (334) 2007, pp. 147–157.</ref> Ergativity formed in the [[perfective]] aspect only (the [[imperfective]] aspect is nominative-accusative), whereas the [[subject (grammar)|subject]], the original [[agent (grammar)|agent]] [[Grammatical construction|construction]] of the passive participle, was expressed as an [[oblique case|oblique]] with [[dative case]], and is presented by [[Agreement (linguistics)|verb-agreement]] rather than case. The absolutive argument in [[Transitive verb|transitive]] clauses is the syntactic [[object (grammar)|object]].<ref>Ura, Hiroyuki. 2006. A Parametric Syntax of Aspectually Conditioned Split-ergativity. In Alana Johns, Diane Massam, and Juvenal Ndayiragije (eds.) Ergativity: Emerging issues. Dordrecht: Springer. 111-141.</ref><ref>A. Mengozzi, Neo-Aramaic and the So-called Decay of Ergativity in Kurdish, in: Proceedings of the 10th Meeting of Hamito-Semitic (Afroasiatic) Linguistics (Florence, 18–20 April 2005), Dipartamento di Linguistica Università di Firenze 2005, pp. 239–256.</ref> The dialects of Kurdish make a concordant distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs by using a tense-split ergative pattern, which is present in the tense system of some NENA dialects; The nominative accusative type is made use of in the present for all the verbs and also for intransitive verbs in past tense and the ergative type is used instead for transitive verbs.<ref>W. Thackston, op. cit. and E. McCarus, Kurdish Morphology, in: A. Kaye (ed.) Morphologies of Asia and Africa (Including the Caucasus)</ref>

Unique among the Semitic languages, the development of ergativity in Northeastern Neo-Aramaic dialects involved the departure of original Aramaic tensed [[finite verb]]al forms.<ref>Nash, Lea. 1996. The Internal Ergative Subject Hypothesis. Proceedings of NELS 26: 195–210.</ref> Thereafter, the active participle became the root of the Suret imperfective, while the [[passive voice|passive]] participle evolved into the Suret perfective.<ref>Alexiadou, Artemis. 2001. Functional Structure in Nominals: Nominalization and Ergativity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.</ref>{{Page needed|date=May 2020}} The Extended-Ergative dialects, which include Iraqi Koine, Hakkari and Christian Urmian dialects, show the lowest state of ergativity and would mark [[unaccusative]] subjects and [[intransitive verb]]s in an ergative pattern.<ref>Hoberman, Robert. 1989. The Syntax and Semantics of Verb Morphology in Modern Aramaic: A Jewish Dialect of Iraqi Kurdistan. New Haven: American Oriental Society.</ref>

{| class="wikitable" align="center"
|+ Ergativity patterns
|-
! Perfective stem
! Split-S <br /> (Jewish [[Sulemaniyya]])
! Dynamic-Stative <br />(Jewish Urmi)
! Extended-Erg <br />(Christian Hakkari dialects)
|-
| he opened it
| {{interlinear|pləx-∅-le|open-ABS-ERG|}}
| {{interlinear|pləx-∅-le|open-ABS-ERG|}}
| {{interlinear|ptíx-∅-le|open-MASC-ERG|}}
|-
| it opened
| {{interlinear|plix-∅|open-ABS|}}
| {{interlinear|pləx-le|open-ERG|}}
| {{interlinear|ptíx-le|open-ERG|}}
|-
| it got cut
| {{interlinear|qəṭe-∅|cut-ABS|}}
| {{interlinear|qṭe-le|cut-ERG|}}
| {{interlinear|qṭí-le|cut-ERG|}}
|-
| it was ruined
| {{interlinear|xrəw-∅-le|ruin-ABS-ERG|}}
| {{interlinear|məxrəw-le-le|ruin-ERG-ACC|}}
| {{interlinear|xríw-∅-le|ruin-ABS-ERG|}}
|}