A Corpus-Based Study of Alignment in Literary Gorani (Based on the Manuscript 11092 of Dīwān-i Mawlawī)

Abstract

This paper examines alignment in Literary Gorani by analysing an unknown Gorani manuscript titled ‘Dīwān-i Mawlawī’ (Manuscript 11092), which is housed at the Āstān-e Qods-e Raḍavī library. The paper has two main objectives. Following Haig (2017) regarding the extent of the micro-variation of ergativity within Iranian languages, the paper explores strategies of interrelated subsystems such as case, indexation, verbal suffixes, and pronominal clitic systems to discover whether Gorani manifests an accusative or an ergative pattern. This helps us to answer the second more general question in this study: is it even possible to consider Literary Gorani as a written form of Hawrami?