Procedural semantics, metarepresentation, and some particles in Behdini Kurdish

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

Lingua 122 (2012) 1613--1635 www.elsevier.com/locate/lingua

Procedural semantics, metarepresentation, and some particles in Behdini Kurdish Christoph Unger a,b,* b

a SIL International, 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road, Dallas, TX 75236-5629, USA Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Northern European and Baltic Languages and Cultures, Department of English and Linguistics, Jakob-Welder-Weg 18, 55099 Mainz, Germany

Received 21 July 2010; received in revised form 17 August 2012; accepted 21 August 2012 Available online 19 September 2012

Abstract Contemporary studies in the linguistic semantics of particles have been greatly influenced by two ideas: that these items trigger pragmatic processing procedures rather than provide purely conceptual content, and that the procedures that some of them trigger relate to the recovery of metarepresentations. Recent developments in the theory of procedural semantics have introduced some refinements, notably the claim that these procedures may not all relate primarily to comprehension per se but may also relate to the epistemic assessment of communicated claims. This paper discusses three particles in Behdini Kurdish in the light of these theoretical developments: the speech-act particle ka often used in requests, commands and questions, the future tense particle dê, and the counterfactual particle da used in utterances about habitual events in the distant past and counterfactual statements in the immediate past or present. It is argued that these particles have in common that they trigger processing procedures affecting metarepresentations. But they differ with respect to the mental function that the procedures they trigger serve, and these differences can explain some of their semantic properties that are difficult to account for otherwise. Specifically, it is argued that dê and da indicate the type of warrant the communicator gives her audience for accepting the claims made in the utterance, whereas ka facilitates the audience's comprehension of complex metarepresentations. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Procedural meaning; Linguistic semantics; Metarepresentation; Pragmatics; Relevance theory; Kurdish; Particles; Epistemic vigilance; Argumentation module; Comprehension module; Interrogatives; Imperatives; Future tense; Counterfactuals

1. Introduction This paper1 looks at the linguistic semantics of three particles in Behdini Kurdish, a Northwestern Indo-Iranian language spoken primarily in Northern Iraq (Dohuk Governorate)2 in the light of recent developments in the theory * Correspondence address: Hammerhof 23, 67308 Albisheim, Germany. Tel.: þ49 6131 39 23080; fax: þ49 6131 39 23973. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected]. 1 The following abbreviations will be used: 1PL 1st person plural, 1SG 1st person singular, 2;3PL 2nd and 3rd person plural, 2SG 2nd person singular, 3PL3 rd person plural, AT Postposition indicating attachment, CT Postposition indicating containment, DIM Diminutive, DS Indicator of desirable thoughts or states of affairs, FUT Future, IAM Imperfective aspect marker, INDF Indefinite, IJ Interjection, IMP.2SG Imperative singular, INF Infinitive, IOM Indirect object marker, MV Postposition indicating movement, OF Oblique case feminine singular, OM Oblique case masculine singular, OP Oblique case plural, PC Distant past or counterfactive non-future, PTCP Participle, PRN3S Pronominal verbal suffix 3rd person singular, Q Question marker, SBJV Subjunctive, SRM Specific reference marker, VOC Vocative, ZF Izafe (noun modifier) feminine singular, ZM Izafe (noun modifier) masculine singular, ZP Izafe (noun modifier) plural. 2 More precisely, it is a sub-dialect of the Northern Kurdish dialect of Kurdish. Useful descriptive grammars of Northern Kurdish with reference to the Behdini dialect include MacKenzie (1961) and Bedir Khan and Lescot (1986). However, only MacKenzie (1961) systematically discusses the grammatical peculiarities of Behdini Kurdish as opposed to other Northern Kurdish varieties, which are not always clearly indicated in Bedir Khan and Lescot (1986). 0024-3841/$ -- see front matter © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2012.08.009

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of procedural meaning. Following the view developed by Blakemore (1987, 2002), Carston (1988, 2002), Iten (2005), Sperber and Wilson (1995) and others, I consider linguistic semantics to be the study of the linguistic encoding of meaning. As Blakemore (1987, 2002) has argued, this study distinguishes two types of linguistic meaning: conceptual and procedural. The particles chosen here are arguably best approached in procedural rather than conceptual terms, that is, as linguistic items that trigger, or in other words, raise the activation level of inferential sub-procedures involved in the pragmatic processing of utterances. However, this is not the only feature that unites them. My claim is that they are also related to the metarepresentational use of utterances, that is, the use of utterances in order to represent other representations (utterances, thoughts or abstract representations) rather than to describe eventualities in different types of (possible or actual) worlds. In other words, I claim that these particles trigger inferential processing paths resulting in the audience treating the proposition(s) conveyed by the utterance as relevant in virtue of metarepresenting another representation and may impose certain constraints on the content of the embedding representation, which I will call the metarepresentational frame. The study of the metarepresentational use of utterances was initiated largely by Gutt (1991), Sperber and Wilson (1981, 1995), Wilson and Sperber (1988b, 1992), Wilson (2000) and applied to linguistic semantics by Blass (1989, 1990), Ifantidou (2001), Noh (2000, 2003), Papafragou (2000) and many others. Most prominent in the list of linguistic items analyzed in these terms are evidentials (e.g. Blass, 1989, 1990; Ifantidou, 2001; Papafragou, 2000; Papafragou et al., 2007), attitudinal adverbs and particles (e.g. Ifantidou-Trouki, 1993; Wharton, 2003, 2009) and quotation (e.g. Gutt, 1991; Noh, 2000). These items crucially involve attributive metarepresentational use, where the thoughts or utterances metarepresented are (tacitly) claimed to be entertained by someone. In contrast, the Behdini-Kurdish particles studied in this paper do not specialize in attributive metarepresentational use, and at least in the case of dê and da are not concerned with this type of metarepresentational use at all. Nevertheless, I argue that the notion of metarepresentational use provides important insights into the semantics and pragmatics of these particles.3 The analysis will show that while the notions of procedural meaning and metarepresentational use point out commonalities of these particles, there are also important differences in the type of metarepresentations involved: in the case of dê and da, the metarepresentations triggered concern the epistemic assessment of claims made in the utterance, whereas the metarepresentations triggered by ka primarily concern the comprehension of the utterances involved. Recent research suggests that these different types of metarepresentations are in fact processed in dedicated mental modules: a comprehension module (Sperber and Wilson, 2002; Wilson and Sperber, 2004) dedicated to inferring speaker meaning, and an argumentation module dedicated to the epistemic assessment of communicated claims in order to guard against misinformation through inferential communication and to persuade audiences (Mercier and Sperber, 2009, 2011; Sperber, 2000, 2001; Sperber et al., 2010).4 Wilson (2011) suggests that linguistic indicators may trigger procedures mentally realized in either of these mental modules. This goes beyond Blakemore's original conception of procedural meaning (Blakemore, 1987, 2002), which claimed that procedural indicators had essentially a comprehension function. The observation made in this paper that it is this distinction in cognitive function between procedures dedicated to comprehension and those dedicated to argumentation and persuasion that underlies the semantic characteristics of the particles studied here provides strong empirical support for Wilson's (2011) claims. This finding provides further empirical support for recent theoretical claims that procedural indicators may differ according to whether they trigger procedures involved in comprehension or argumentation dedicated to the epistemic assessment of claims and arguments (Sperber et al., 2010; Wilson, 2011). This paper is organized as follows: section 2 provides an analysis of the speech-act particle ka. In section 3 I suggest that a metarepresentational use analysis can also shed light on the future tense particle dê and perhaps on the semantics of future tense in general. This analysis includes, and benefits from, a comparative analysis with the aspectual and temporal particle da. Section 4 summarizes the main conclusions reached and outlines questions for further research.

3 The analysis proposed is similar in spirit to the ones proposed in de Saussure and Sthioul (2005) and de Saussure and Sthioul (1999) for French. 4 In fact, there are also other cognitive modules involved in the audience's exercise of epistemic vigilance: Sperber et al. (2010) point out modules dedicated to assess the communicator's competence and benevolence, and the evaluation of the likely truth of communicated content. Moreover, these epistemic vigilance mechanisms not only help audiences to guard against accidental or intentional misinformation, but also empower communicators to persuade vigilant audiences. Seen from the communicator's perspective, the argumentation module empowers her to produce arguments for persuasive encounters, and according to Mercier and Sperber's argumentative theory of reasoning (Mercier and Sperber, 2009, 2011) gives rise to the reasoning skills of humans. However, for the purposes of this paper it is sufficient to focus on the argumentative module's contribution to the evaluative aspect of epistemic vigilance.

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2. The modal particle ka and metarepresentational use 2.1. The uses of ka There is a clause initial particle ka in Behdini Kurdish that can be used in a variety of circumstances: in imperatival utterances, interrogatives, sub-sentential imperatives and interrogatives, embedded questions, as markers of sideline comments and reformulations. In this section I want to demonstrate these uses in turn.5 2.1.1. The imperatival uses of ka Consider first the following imperatives (1): (1)

a.

b.

ka rawest-in DS stop-2;3PL ‘Stop!’ (Mendê Tirsinok, p. 17) ka dest-ên min vek-e DS hands-of mine untie-IMP.2SG ‘Please untie my hands.’ (Mendê Tirsinok, p. 24)

Notice that the contextually inferred politeness level of the imperatives in these examples is different. Both examples are from the folk story Mendê Tirsinok ‘Mendê, the Coward’. (1a) is spoken by a demon who is restraining his younger brothers: they see Mendê asleep by the fire in their cave and want to kill him. The older brother wants to prevent that by saying (1a). He continues to give reasons for why it is not a good idea to kill Mendê right away in his sleep. It is a strong plea, spoken with the authority of the oldest brother and followed by presenting reasons for a different course of action. (1b) is said by the fairy queen Ewran to Mendê to ask him to remove the ties that a demon has strung around her hands. It is a polite request. Although ka can be used in imperatives, there are a few differences between imperatives with and those without ka. Consider the following examples: (2)

Ka xwê DS salt ‘Salt, please.’ Or: ‘Pass the salt, please.’

(3)

Xwê bid-e min salt give-IMP.2SG me ‘Give me the salt!’

(4)

Ka xwê bid-e min DS salt give-IMP.2SG me ‘(Please) give me the salt.’

(5)

Xwê salt ‘Salt!’

At lunch I may request someone else to pass me the salt by using (2), (4) or (3), but in most cases not with (5) which would be too impolite. Of the three possibilities, the ones with ka seem to be the more polite ones. In general, imperatives with ka can be used in situations where the speaker is of lower social rank than the addressee, whereas imperatives without this particle seem to be avoided in this situation: (6)

Household maid to landlord: ka sênîk-a xo hêve bîn-e, Dr Perwer, ji DS plate-of yours here bring-IMP.2SG, Dr Perwer, from kerem-a xo. grace-of self. ‘Please bring your plate over here, Dr Perwer.’ (Bamarni, Evîniya bê tuxîb, p. 6)

5 The data for the analyses in this paper comes mainly from published (printed) literature, from transcriptions of tape-recorded oral narrations collected by the author during field work, and occasionally from field notes. A list of the texts used can be found in the appendix.

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There are some interesting observations to make. First, the particle ka can turn a one-word expression such as (5) into an acceptable sub-sentential utterance, with no verb. Second, the particle is not necessary to indicate imperative mood. In fact it can be used alongside it, and when it is it does not create a feeling of meaning redundancy. So it cannot really encode the same meaning as the imperative morphology. Finally, ka can do something to the force of the imperative that makes it less blunt and more polite.6 All these observations strongly suggest the conclusion that whatever meaning is encoded in ka, it is different from imperative mood as encoded in the imperative morphology. Let us now turn to the use of ka in questions. 2.1.2. Interrogative uses of ka Consider the informative question (7): (7)

bêj-e ka te xêr e say-IMP.2SG DS your grace is ‘Tell me, what is your request?’ (Dostînî)

At first sight, this variety of usage falls in with the standard view that both imperatives and questions convey directive speech acts in the sense of Searle (1979). Directives are attempts by the speaker to get the hearer to do something: a command is an attempt to get the hearer to do an action, whereas questions can be seen as a request to get the hearer to provide some information. But it is clear that the speaker of (8) does not seriously request any information, neither from his addressee nor from anyone else. He simply states that he does not know what happened to his brother: (8)

belê min ni-zanî ka ci lê hat but I not-knew DS what to him happened ‘But I didn’t know what happened to him’ (Mendê Tirsinok, p. 18)

Of course, most questions do not use ka, so obviously the particle can not be claimed to be a question marker in its own right. Also, genuine questions can be introduced with the particle erê, and questions with an expected negative answer with the particle ma. Consider first (9), in its context a prototypical request for information, introduced with the particle erê: (9)

Erê kengî rêkxiraw-êt xêrxwaz vê nexus¸xan-a biçük-a Q when authorities-of respected this hospital-of children-OF ev-a bi rex me ve bi dîmahîk în-in? this-of at side ours MV with end bring-3PL? ‘When will the honored authorities finish this children's hospital next to us’? (Evîniya bê tuˆ x¨îb, p. 4)

The next example is from a short story by Qeyran Ferec Ebdal, ‘Xirro’. The ‘hero’ of this short story is Xirro, a watchdog in a village. One day he recognizes that the village is abandoned, no people are there any more. He wonders why. Among the questions he asks himself is the following: (10)

Ma çê-di-b-ît mirov ji-ber baran u Q possible-IAM-become-3SG man from-before rain and befr-ê bar ke-t, mal-a xu u xani-yê xu snow-OF flight make-3SG, home-of self and house-of self bi-hêl-ît? SBJV-let.alone-3SG ‘Is it possible that people flee before rain and snow, that they leave behind their home and house?’ (Xirro, p. 33)

The answer is clear, people would not evacuate their homes and abandon their village just because of rain and snow. The question is introduced with the particle ma to indicate that a negative answer is expected. A further obvious difference between erê and ma on the one hand, and ka on the other, is that neither erê nor ma can occur in imperatives. They are genuine question particles. 6 In (1a) above, politeness is not an issue: the older brother can speak with full authority. However, in the discourse context it is clear that the speaker intends not only to give a command, but also to give reasons for a different course of action. In this sense the imperative is less rough than a strict command.

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Questions expressing indirect requests cannot be introduced with erê (and trivially not with ma). Such questions can be expressed as a negative question in the following way: (11)

tu ne-s¸e-yî xwê bi-de-yî min? you not-can-2SG salt SBJV-give-2SG me? ‘Can you give me the salt?’

However, erê and ma can not introduce embedded questions. Embedded questions are obligatorily introduced with the particle ka. Consider the following examples of embedded questions: (12)

dergehvan bitinê rê da bo s¸es ¸ hêft kes-a ji receptionist only way gave for six seven persons-OP from mirov-êt nexus ¸ -î ku liber dergeh-ê hol-a relatives-of the.sick-OM who in.front.of door-of hall-of ?emeliyet-ê xo lêbigir-in ka dê girup-a diktor-a operation-OF self gather-3PL whether FUT group-of doctors-OP s¸ên bi hîvî-ya Xudê ve wî birîndar-î ji can with hope-of God MV that injured.man-OM from mirin-ê qurtal ke-t. death-OF rescue make-3SG. ‘The receptionist admitted only six or seven relatives of the sick who had gathered in front of the operation room in order to see whether the group of doctors may be able, with the help of God, to rescue the injured from death.’ (Evîniya bê tuˆ x¨îb, p. 2)

(13)

te bi xo jî dî-t ka Serdar-î xêr buˆ you with self also saw-3SG what Serdar-OM grace was bawis¸k-êt wî di-hat-in u çav-êt wî hês¸ta di-sor yawns-of him IAM-came-3PL and eyes-of him still IAM-red buˆ -n. were-3PL. ‘You have seen yourself what was wrong with Serdar, he yawned and his eyes were still red.’ (Evîniya bê tuˆ x¨îb, p. 3)

Ka can also occur in main clause questions, see example (14). This is an example from the folk tale Mendê Tirsinok ‘Mend, the Coward’ as published by Hizirvan. Mendê's wife gets upset with his timidness and locks him out of the house one night with the words: (14)

Pa ev-e tu herre, ka dê çi tov mêranî-yê Pa this-SRM you go, DS FUT what kind bravery-OM ke-yî? do-2SG? ‘Oh, off you go, what kind of bravery will you do?’ (Mendê Tirsinok, p. 15, line 11)

In fact, (14) is formally a root question that is used as a rhetorical question with exclamatory force. The example is interesting because rhetorical questions with an expected negative answer are usually introduced with ma. Finally, ka can also be used in sub-sentential questions. For example, the sub-sentential expression ka þ noun (as in example (1a) above) could be used by a visitor to ask if his friend is at home, see example (15): (15)

Ka S ¸ ivan? DS Shivan? ‘Where is Shivan?’

When discussing the many things that make life difficult, one could say (16) as a rhetorical question: (16)

Ka jiyan? DS live? ‘Where's life?’

Examples such as (15) and (16) can be heard many times in everyday conversations.

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2.1.3. Ka in sideline comments and reformulations The following two examples (17) and (18) are taken from narratives, from a folk tale: (17)

vrêk-in il S ¸ am-ê ka il kî bajêr-ê ye send-3PL in Damascus-OF DS in which town-OF he.was ‘they sent it [i.e. A letter] to Damascus, that is, in whatever town he was’ (Sînem)

(18)

u kirin-ê dest-ê êk-î da ka çawa hingê wî and make-it hand-ZM one-OM CT DS how then that.OBL wext-î vrê-d-kir-in mektub. time-OM send-IAM-make-3PL letter. ‘and gave it [i.e. The same letter as in (17)] to somebody in the manner in which they sent letters at that time’. (Sînem)

In (17), the narrator says that the people sent a letter to the city where the main protagonist in the story went on a journey. Since it is a fictitious story, the identity of the city does not matter, only that the narrator had chosen to say that the main protagonist went to Damascus, the prototypical far-away-town for doing business. The clause introduced with ka reformulates this statement to make sure the audience understands that they sent the letter to whichever town that the main person in the story world visited. In this use, ka may be translated as ‘that is’. In example (18), the narrator interrupts the story line to explain that what has just been described (that some people gave the letter that they wanted to send to someone for bringing it to Damascus) was how sending a letter was done in former times before there was a postal service. This aside is introduced by ka. That is, ka can have a discourse function of indicating reformulations (example (17)) and sideline comments (example (18)) in addition to its use in questions and imperatives. With such a variety of uses it seems unlikely that there is one underlying meaning encoded in the particle. Still, I do want to argue that there is one. 2.1.4. Summary Let us take stock of the properties of ka that an analysis of the particle must explain:    

Ka Ka Ka Ka

occurs in both questions and imperatives. is neither an imperative marker nor a question marker. is obligatory in embedded questions. No question marker can occur in this position. can occur in reformulations and sideline comments in discourse.

Previous studies have made only brief comments about the use of ka. Thus, MacKenzie (1961) describes briefly the use of ka in sub-sentential utterances involving root questions, claiming that the particle ‘contains the sense of a verb ‘‘where is, are. . .?’’’ (MacKenzie, 1961:vol. 1, §278b, p. 176). In a footnote he mentions the use of ka in embedded questions in examples like (8), claiming that this is ‘another, seemingly untranslatable, use’ (MacKenzie, 1961:vol. 1, §278b, p. 176, fn.3). However, he does not discuss the imperatival uses of this particle at all, and does not investigate the relation of ka to question markers or imperatives. Still, these remarks give the impression that ka ought to be analyzed as semantically ambiguous or homonymous. My claim is that all the uses of ka can be explained on the assumption that this particle indicates that the information conveyed in the utterance should not be taken to represent a state of affairs in the world, but a thought, that is, another mental representation. Sperber and Wilson (1995), Wilson and Sperber (1988b) have called this use of utterances interpretive use, whereas more recent publications speak of metarepresentational use (Carston, 1996; Noh, 2000; Wilson, 2000). In the next section I will explore this hypothesis in more detail. 2.2. Ka as a marker of metarepresentational use As we have seen, ka can occur in questions as well as in imperatives. According to Wilson and Sperber (1988a) and Sperber and Wilson (1995), both imperatives and questions involve metarepresentations involving desirability and potentiality. They argue that imperative syntax indicates that the proposition expressed should be interpreted as the description of a state of affairs in a special type of possible world: a world in which it is desirable for the speaker or hearer (or perhaps someone else) and potential (or achievable) for someone to make the state of affairs described in the proposition conveyed come true. As Carston (2002:120) points out, this means that imperatives do not communicate the proposition P per se, but rather higher-level explicatures as in (19), which are the result of embedding the proposition expressed under possible world descriptions.

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(19)

a. b.

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It is desirable for X that P, and it is potential for Y to make P true

The values for X and Y must be determined by pragmatic inference. Various values for these variables lead to imperatives conveying different illocutionary forces of imperative utterances, such as the force of request, command, advice, permission, and so on. In a similar way, questions, too, convey the notions of desirability and potentiality (Sperber and Wilson, 1995; Wilson and Sperber, 1988a). However, questions do not describe states of affairs in desirable and potential worlds; rather, questions indicate that it is desirable from someone's perspective to know whether some proposition is true, and potential for someone (speaker or hearer) to tell whether that proposition is true. The proposition whose truth-value is desirable to know is logically related to the logical form of the utterance: it is the proposition expressed in yes-no-questions; in whquestions, it is the proposition that is obtained by replacing the wh-question word with the correct completion. This means that the statement P is the answer that would make true the idea expressed in the question, and which would be desirable for the speaker or the addressee to know. In other words: questions metarepresent their answers as knowledge that is desirable to the speaker or addressee. More specifically, questions convey higher-level explicatures such as (20), but add a layer of metarepresentation by indicating the Utterance U is logically related to the proposition P in a defined way: (20)

a. b. c.

It is desirable for X to know whether P, and it is potential for Y to tell that P, and U metarepresents P by -- replacing the question word with a completion in case of wh-questions -- representing the proposition expressed in case of yes-no-questions

It is tempting to hypothesize that ka is related to the process of embedding propositions under descriptions of desirability and potentiality. But as we have seen, ka can occur in utterances that are neither interrogatives nor imperatives: recall examples (17) and (18). We have identified example (17) as an instance of reformulation. A reformulation is the expression of the content of an utterance or thought in different words; it is intended to resemble that other statement. In other words: reformulations involve metarepresentational use (Blakemore, 1997). The metarepresentation involved is something like the following: (21)

The speaker says that s/he has said in the previous utterance that P

Example (18) is a sideline comment of the narrator in the narrative. Again, such sideline comments involve metarepresentation: (22)

The narrator explains that the previous utterance in the narrative makes sense if understood as P

There are no longer ideas of desirability and achievability conveyed in these cases of metarepresentational use. This leads to the hypothesis that ka may signal a general indication of metarepresentative use. We can account for this in the following way: assume that in comprehending utterances, the mental module dedicated to processing ostensive stimuli--the comprehension module of Sperber and Wilson (2002)---seeks to find an optimally relevant interpretation of the utterance.7 It does so by accessing interpretive hypothesis following a path of least effort and checks whether the utterance meets relevance expectations on this interpretation, stopping at the first one that meets these expectations and treating it as the speaker-intended one. Both the construction of interpretive hypotheses and the process of checking their 7 An optimally relevant interpretation of an utterance is a set of assumptions about the intended pragmatic enrichment of linguistic meaning, implicit import, and context that achieves at least enough positive cognitive effects (that is, true improvements of the individual's mental representation of the world) to be worth the audience's attention, and possibly more, for no unreasonable processing effort. Sperber and Wilson (1995) and Wilson and Sperber (2004) show that optimally relevant interpretations can be identified by a heuristic comprehension procedure: access interpretive hypotheses for utterances in order of accessibility, starting with the one involving the least processing effort to access, and check whether the utterance, on this interpretation, yields positive cognitive effects of the expected kinds and levels. If so, accept this interpretation as the one intended by the communicator; if not, continue along a path of least effort until an interpretation satisfying relevance expectations is met or the processing effort involved does not warrant continuation.

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relevance involve many specialized inferential heuristic sub-processes that work in parallel and compete for processing resources (Sperber and Wilson, 1996; Sperber, 2005). These heuristic sub-processes are more or less highly activated and dynamically change their activation status due to several factors. Let us assume that among these sub-processes is one that constructs metarepresentations from its input. I propose that ka encodes a trigger for this procedure in the sense that it raises the activation level of the sub-procedure of the comprehension module that embeds its inputs in a metarepresentational frame. As a result, the construction of metarepresentations consumes less processing effort, and outputs of this sub-process are highly accessible as components of interpretive hypotheses. Consequently, metarepresentationally rich interpretive hypotheses are more likely to be checked for relevance first than others. Hence, relevance expectations are more likely met by interpretations involving a higher degree of metarepresentational complexity than the audience would likely have considered if the linguistic trigger had been absent. In other words: ka indicates that an optimally relevant interpretation involves more levels of metarepresentation than what the audience would typically consider in its absence.8 Let us first look at imperatives. Recall the observation that imperative utterances with ka often carry overtones of politeness, or of a mitigation of the commanding force of the imperative, as in (1b), (4) and (6). We can account for this by observing that the presence of the metarepresentation trigger ka encourages the addressee to look for an additional layer of metarepresentation. What could this additional layer of metarepresentation be? Consider a situation where the speaker of an imperative utterance is addressing a superior, as in (6). In this situation it would be in the interest of the communicator to make sure that the addressee does not interpret him as passing on an actual command. The same applies to situations where the addressee is not necessarily a superior, but where the communicator is interested in establishing friendly terms with the addressee, as in (1b) or (4). In other words, what is in the interest of the communicator is not just to convey that it is desirable for the communicator and achievable for the addressee to bring about the situation P, but to convey the metarepresentationally more complex thought in (23): (23)

The communicator intends the addressee to consider a situation where it is desirable to the communicator and achievable for the addressee to bring about the situation P.

With this extra layer of metarepresentation the communicator is in effect quoting his own thought, as if to distance himself from the forcefulness of the command. This extra layer of metarepresentation adds to processing effort. By using ka, the communicator encourages the addressee to put in this extra processing effort. But because of the mind's strive for efficiency in information processing, this extra effort must be offset by additional cognitive benefits. In the type of communication situation envisaged here, this benefit may simply lie in the reduced chance of the addressee misinterpreting the communicator as being impolite and indicates that the utterance is relevant only if interpreted with this additional layer of metarepresentation.9 In other types of communication situation, this additional layer of metarepresentation may be different. For example, if a father tells his child to stop doing something and says ka raweste ‘ka stop!’, then the father is emphasizing the commanding force of the imperative rather than mitigating it. The metarepresentation may be the following: The child should understand that it is desirable for the father and achievable for the child to bring about the situation P. (Without ka, the utterance would only communicate the higher-level explicature It is desirable for the father and achievable for the child to bring about the situation P.) The effect of using ka is comparable to the effect of pronouncing the English utterances Stop!, Stop it! or Don’t! with a more commanding tone of voice (involving a heavier stress on the stressed syllable, perhaps accompagnied with a greater fall in pitch towards the end.) Similar remarks apply to example (1a): in this case, the metarepresentation is conceivably The addressees should appreciate the fact that it is desirable for their oldest brother and achievable for them to bring about that they stop considering doing harm to Mendê. (Without ka, the utterance would 8 This explanation of procedural indicators as triggers of specialized mental sub-process follows Wilson (2011:11) who argues that the function of procedural indicators is ‘. . .to put the user of the language into a state in which some of these domain-specific cognitive procedures are highly activated (and hence more likely to be selected by a hearer using the relevance-theoretic comprehension heuristic).’ It differs somewhat from earlier charaterizations of procedural indicators as encoding constraints on the inferential paths followed in utterance interpretation (e.g. Blakemore, 2002:78) in that it is more explicit about the cognitive function of procedural indicators. For further discussion, see Wilson and Wharton (2006), Wharton (2009:128--134) and Unger (2011). 9 An anonymous reviewer comments that the use of ka and the processing effort required by the extra layer of metarepresentation does not necessarily have to be offset by extra cognitive effects. Rather, this effort may be justified by the communicator's preference to appear polite and is therefore licensed by the clause in the definition of optimal relevance stating that optimal relevance involves as high a degree of relevance as is compatible with the communictor's abilities and preferences. This analysis is insightful as it highlights the social effect of ka in this particular type of use by linking it to social preferences of the communicator. However, this analysis still requires the audience to make an inference from the fact that the communicator employed ka to the conclusion that she intended to appear polite, and this conclusion amounts to an extra cognitive effect.

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merely communicate the higher-level explicature It is desirable for their oldest brother and achievable for them to bring about that they stop considering doing harm to Mendê. Again, this difference in interpretation would be achieved in English by adopting a more commanding tone of voice when uttering Stop!) The fact that the person to whom P is desirable is their oldest brother will bring to mind cultural knowledge about the authority of older people, especially older brothers, which in turn leads to further cognitive effects having to do with the force of the command given and the desirability for the addressees to comply with it. In short, this analysis of ka predicts that the particle has an impact on the meaning of an imperative utterance over and above the imperative indication, but this impact is subject to pragmatic enrichment in context. As a final note on the use of ka in imperative utterances, consider sub-sentential imperative utterances such as (1a) and (2). Sub-sentential utterances require much free enrichment to recover not only the proposition expressed but also higherlevel explicatures such as speech-act descriptions (Carston, 2002:152--157; Stainton, 1994, 2004). The use of ka may help this process in the following way: ka requires that whatever speech-act the sub-sentential utterance is interpreted as expressing, it is to be treated as metarepresenting a thought or another type of representation. We have seen that this additional layer of metarepresentation may make sense when imperatival speech acts are intended, i.e. when thoughts about desirable states of affairs are involved, as a means to mitigate or underscore the force of the speech act involved. I will show below that it may also make sense in the case of interrogative speech acts, where thoughts about desirable thoughts must be processed. However, a communicator who merely wishes to convey the proposition expressed (i.e. make a declarative speech act) will normally put her audience to unnecessary processing effort if she requires that interpretation to involve further layers of metarepresentation. Therefore, the use of ka in a sub-sentential utterance has the effect of making non-declarative interpretations much more likely and hence more easily accessible. In fact, it is plausible that ka may be used in sub-sentential utterances merely to achieve this secondary effect, as presumably in example (2). In other instances, additional metarepresentations need to be accessed (as most likely in (1a) discussed above). Regarding ka in interrogatives, the first thing to notice is that the majority of such uses involve either sub-sentential utterances such as (15) and (16), or embedded questions such as (8) where no interrogative particle can be used. When ka is used in sub-sentential utterances, it is important to note that the clause does not linguistically indicate illocutionary force or sentence type. So the account of ka for sub-sentential imperatival utterances carries over directly: ka indicates to the addressee that the clause is to be interpreted as conveying metarepresentation. In situations where (15) is uttered--the speaker has called at the door of someone---it is highly manifest to the addressee that the speaker intends to see someone living in this house, and that he believes the addressee to be in a position to tell whether this person is at home. Hence, the following metarepresentational interpretation is easily accessible: It is desirable for the speaker to know, and possible for the addressee to supply the information, whether Shivan is at home. Most likely, this interpretation will be relevant enough to the addressee, so ka is in this case used solely to ensure that the addressee will in fact interpret the sub-sentential utterance as conveying some non-declarative meaning. In other cases, relevance considerations may require the recovery of more complex metarepresentations. For example, if at the end of a long speech bemoaning the difficulties facing people caused by the local economic conditions and political instability, the speaker says (16), a relevant interpretation may require the addressee recognizing the speaker echoing claims of politicians to the effect that life is getting better and the speaker's intention of distancing himself from these claims, implicitly conveying a fairly strong dissociative attitude at the same time, so that the utterance is felt to convey sarcasm.10 Turning to another type of use, consider example (7): in the main clause, the speaker is requesting the addressee to tell him something. The logical form of the main clause is pragmatically enriched into a higher-level explicature schema of the form It is desirable for the speaker, and possible for the addressee to bring about, the state of affairs that the addressee tells the speaker that P, where P is a variable that stands for the interpretation of the embedded clause. In other words, it is a metarepresentation frame raising the expectation that another representation will be inserted into this frame in the course of utterance processing. The embedded clause ka te xêr e ‘what's your request’ consists of an idiomatic expression te xêr e which has a conventionalized interpretation: It is desirable for the speaker, and possible for the addressee to bring about, the state of affairs that the addressee says what his/her request or concern is. Inserting this higher-level explicature into a metarepresentational frame that likewise consists of a higher-level explicature results in a fairly complex metarepresentation. The particle ka introducing the embedded clause facilitates the addressee's processing of this utterance by increasing the activation level of the metarepresentation processing sub-procedure of the comprehension heuristic and thereby saving the addressee's processing effort. But why should a speaker choose to have the addressee process a higher-level explicature expressing imperatival force in a metarepresentational frame expressing the same kind of higher-level explicature in the first place, using this embedded syntactic structure, rather than use the idiomatic expression te xêr e plainly without ka (for which there are several examples in the same text)? An answer that suggests itself is that by requiring this level of processing effort the 10 This account is based on the echoic account of irony developed by Sperber and Wilson (1995) and Wilson and Sperber (1992). On this account, sarcasm is a variant of irony involving rather strong dissociative attitudes.

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speaker causes the addressee to recognize something of the strength of this imperatival illocutionary force: it is not merely a casual request, but the speaker urges the addressee to advance his request. This fits the situational context well: the speaker addresses his friend who had sent his son to summon him (the speaker) to his house in the middle of the night. Someone who acts like this will surely have a grave reason to do so, and getting him to explain this reason will be a matter of urgency for the speaker. Embedded questions are somewhat more complex. Notice that they closely resemble utterances that the communicator could use if she had the chance to put an informative question to a knowledgeable audience. For example, in (8), if the speaker had an encounter with a knowledgeable audience, he could use the question Çi lê hat? ‘What happened to him?’ This question would be interpreted along the following lines: the wh-question word çi ‘what’ indicates that a replacement of the variable with a representation that can complete the logical schema X happened to the speaker's brother into a proposition that is a true description of a state of affairs in the world, and interrogative intonation (high-low pitch fall on the question word) indicates that it is desirable to the speaker to come to know a completion of this propositional schema yielding a true description of a state of affairs. The matrix clause Ez nizanim ‘I don’t know’ has a logical form containing a variable for the description of a state of affairs that is the object of the matrix verb: I don’t know P. When the addressee has interpreted the matrix clause, the expectation is raised that what follows will provide a representation to fill into P. But the embedded clause does not provide such a representation directly, it merely metarepresents a representation that would be relevant for the speaker of the question Çi lê hat? ‘What happened to him?’ to know. This representation would, of course, also be a suitable substitute for P, and therefore resemble P in relevant respects. Thus, the representation that the embedded question metarepresents also metarepresents a suitable substitute for the representation that would complete the propositional schema of the matrix clause. By making complex metarepresentation relations easier to process, using ka in the embedded question facilitates processing embedded questions. In other words, the speaker of (8) effectively communicates the thought I don’t know P, and P is the information that is asked for in the interrogative utterance ‘what happened to him’. To comprehend this thought, the addressee needs to infer the metarepresentations conveyed in the question type What happened to him and realize that these metarepresentations also metarepresent the object of the matrix clause. All this involves fairly complex inferences over metarepresentations, and the use of ka with its effect of raising the activation level of metarepresentational procedures makes these processes less costly. Similarly, in (12) the embedded question introduced by ka metarepresents the utterance of an alternative question about a future state of affairs: dê girupa diktora ¸sên. . .wî birîndarî ji mirinê qurtal ket ‘can the group of doctors. . .save this wounded man from death?’11 and in (13) it is an idiomatic form of the question Serdarî çi xêr buˆ ‘What is going on with Serdar?’12 The only example of the use of ka in root clauses is the second clause of (14). Intuitively, the speaker conveys a strong scornful attitude. What is the object of this attitude? It is obvious at this point in the story that Mendê's wife is sick of her husband's over-fearfulness, as she has just expelled him out of the house in the middle of the night. So obviously, she must scorn the thought that she might be asking by way of an informative question what sort of brave acts her husband might do. Moreover, she scorns the thought that her husband might do any bravery at all. In other words, Mendê's wife scorns the complex thought It is desirable for the speaker (Mendê's wife) to know, and it is desirable for the addressee (Mendê) to show that the addressee does some kind of brave act, Notice that this complex thought would be the result of interpreting the interrogative syntax (indicated by question intonation) as an informative question. By implicitly conveying a scornful attitude to this interpretation of the interrogative utterance (which the addressee might erroneously infer), the speaker distances herself from any suggestion that she might be interested to learn about the addressee's capacity for bravery. Notice that this interpretation involves the recovery of more metarepresentations than those required by interpreting the interrogative syntax alone: It is ridiculous to think that it is desirable for the speaker (Mendê's wife) to know, and it is desirable for the addressee (Mendê) to show that the addressee does some kind of brave act, as well as: It is ridiculous to think that the speaker might have intended to convey the idea that it is desirable for the speaker (Mendê's wife) to know, and it is desirable for the addressee (Mendê) to show that the addressee does some kind of brave act. I claim that the particle ka encourages the addressee (and the reader) to entertain these additional metarepresentations. Notice that an interpretation of (14) as a plain rhetorical question will not yield such a rich emotional effect. Such an interpretation would involve inferring that the speaker intends to convey the negation of the proposition The addressee will do some brave act, and that the speaker conveys the idea that it is desirable for the addressee to know and for the speaker to tell that the negation of the proposition The addressee will do some brave act holds. Arguably, such an interpretation could be indicated by the particle ma which introduces rhetorical questions. However, this interpretation is less 11 Alternative questions in Behdini Kurdish have the same word order as declarative sentences and can be indicated by question intonation alone, question intonation consisting of high-low fall on the stressed syllable of the head of the constituent which expresses the focus of the question, the auxiliary s ¸ ên ‘they can, they are able to’ in this case. The question particle erê is optional. 12 The wh-question word çi ‘what’ can be omitted in idiomatic speech.

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metarepresentationally complex, and if the speaker intends to convey further attitudinal information, then the use of ka rather than ma (or no particle) is called for. And surely the speaker does not want to scorn the thought The addressee (Mendê) will not do any bravery, so in order to convey the intended propositional attitudes, ma is not even an option. So far I have argued that my account is general enough to shed light on all the types uses of ka. It remains to check whether this account might be too general. This danger is in fact very real: I have claimed that ka amounts to a very general indicator of all types of metarepresentative use. But general indicators of metarepresentative use should be expected to be used as hearsay indicators (among others) (Blass, 1989, 1990). Yet ka in Behdini Kurdish blatantly can’t be used in this way. A first explanation could be that hearsay (along with quotation) is an instance of attributive metarepresentational use in the sense of Wilson (2000): where the relevance of metarepresenting a thought (or utterance) lies in the communicator attributing that thought (or utterance) to someone else. All instances of ka that we have seen so far involve non-attributive metarepresentational use. One way to account for this observation is to claim that ka does not only trigger a procedure requiring the embedding of the proposition(s) expressed in some metarepresentational frame, but also a restriction on the content of these metarepresentational frames: they must not amount to attributions of the metarepresented representation to others. But while this hypothesis would indeed shed light on why ka can’t be used as hearsay indicator, it would fail to account for the fact that ka is not used to indicate inferential evidentiality either. Inferential evidentiality is arguably an instance of nonattributive interpretive use as well: the communicator is metarepresenting a conclusion of inferences she has drawn in her mind (Blass, 1990:121). So we need to find a deeper explanation for the non-application of ka as indicator of evidentiality. Recall that the claim is that ka triggers a general metarepresentation calculation procedure in the comprehension module. Recently, Wilson (2011) suggested that evidential indications are processed in a different mental module, the argumentation module, which is dedicated to the epistemic and argumentative evaluation of claims made by utterances (Sperber et al., 2010). Adopting this suggestion provides a straightforward account of the non-applicability of ka to evidentiality indication: ka raises the activation level of the general metarepresentation identifying procedure in the comprehension module, but it does not affect the activation level of whatever mental procedures assess the evidential status of utterances. An anonymous reviewer pointed out that other cases where general indicators of metarepresentational use might be expected to occur include metalinguistic negation and conditionals. However, the indicators of negation and conditional operators presumably activate the metarepresentational procedure in their own right so that the communicator wouldn’t be justified to use an additional linguistic metarepresentation trigger. Moreover, according to Sperber (2001), the logical vocabulary (including negation and conditional operators) relates to the argumentation module rather than the comprehension module, and the procedures of the argumentation module are unaffected by ka on the present analysis. To summarize this discussion, I have put forward the analysis that ka raises the activation level of a procedure that infers metarepresentations on its input. As a result of the use of this general metarepresentation trigger the audience is in a position to consider more complex metarepresentations than otherwise. Because this procedure contributes to the comprehension module rather than the argumentation module, this general metarepresentation trigger does not on its own lead to indications of evidentiality, so that this analysis explains all attested types of usages of ka while being restrictive enough to avoid wrong predictions of unattested uses. Thus, to avoid over-generation problems for the analysis, there is no need to turn to restrictions on the content of the metarepresentation frames involved to those appropriate for the non-attributive use (which would not be fully empirically adequate, anyway). This analysis shows the power of a metarepresentational use analysis for explaining varieties of uses of linguistic items that are difficult to explain in speech-act terms, or in terms of other established semantic categories. In the next section, I will discuss two other particles in Behdini-Kurdish that have to do with the indication of the temporal, modal and aspectual interpretation of utterances: the future tense indicator dê and the particle da indicating a variety of interpretations such as counterfactual statements and habitual events in the distant past. I will argue that a metarepresentational analysis can shed more light on the nature of these indicators and their relationship than modal, temporal or aspectual analyses can. However, I will also argue that at least some of the metarepresentational procedures triggered by these indicators have a different function in communication than the procedures triggered by ka: they relate to the type of warrant a speaker has for her claims and relate to argumentative aspects of communication rather than to comprehension per se. 3. The future tense particle dê and its syntactic counterpart da There are two particles in Behdini-Kurdish that share some important syntactic properties: they occur directly after the subject noun phrase, and when they occur in a sentence, the verb can have neither a subjunctive prefix nor an imperfective aspect prefix. These particles are dê and da, both called ‘modal particles’ by MacKenzie (1961:vol. 1, §281b, p. 180).13 Dê 13

This ‘modal’ da must be distinguished from the connective da ‘so that’.

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indicates future tense.14 The meaning of da is more elusive, affecting aspectual, temporal and modal interpretations in intricate ways, and occurs much less frequently than dê.15 In this section I will primarily look at the future tense particle dê. I will also look at da pointing out mainly how it contrasts with dê and how this could be reflected in a metarepresentational analysis of both particles. 3.1. Uses of dê The particle dê in the syntactic construction just described is used as the expression of future tense, as in the following examples: (24)

belê hês¸ta ez ya di tengavî-yê da, u tu jî dê but still I ZF in trouble-OF CT and you also will kevî-ye di tengavî-yê mezin da. fall-IOM in trouble-OF big CT ‘but I am still in deep trouble, and you, too, will get into big trouble.’ (Mendê Tirsinok)

(25)

pis¸tî çax-ek-î kêm dê heft dêw hên-e di after while-DIM-OM little FUT seven demons come-IOM in s¸keft-ê ve cave-OF MV ‘after a short while seven demons will come into the cave.’ (Mendê Tirsinok)

Occasionally, the particle dê may precede the subject as in (26): (26)

ne hakîm îna d-in-e ser got-î: every healer brought.in did-3SG-IOM over said-PTCP: bab-o ev-ê Sînem-ê vê-t, tu bu kurr-ê xo father-VOC this-ZM Sinem-OF need-3SG, you for son-of self bîn-î yan dê kurr-ê te ji dest-ê te ç-it, bring-2SG or FUT son-of yours from hand-of yours go-3SG, dê kurr-ê te mir-it. FUT son-of yours die-3SG. ‘Every healer that they brought in [to examine him] said: Father, he needs Sinem, you must get her for your son or you will loose your son, your son will die.’ (Sînem)

It appears that this word order variant emphasizes the inevitability of the anticipated future event.16 Dê may refer to a point in future time that may be very close to the present. Example (27) is from a tape recording; it is the last part of the speaker's explanation of what he is going to record now. The song that he is about to record follows immediately after this announcement. (27)

u ez dê bu te piçek-ê j-ê bêj-im. and I FUT for you a.little-OF from-it say-1SG ‘and I will sing a little bit of it for you.’

Another example in this context is the following: a guest can indicate the end of his visit by saying (28):17 (28)

14

vêca ez dê ç-im-e mal-ê so I FUT go-1SG-IOM home-OF ‘I will go home now.’

See MacKenzie (1961) and Bedir Khan and Lescot (1986). Both grammars describe the morphological and syntactic properties of dê but do not elaborate on the various temporal and modal uses of future tense. 15 MacKenzie (1961:vol. 1, §281b, p. 180) calls da a modal particle that forms a tense which he calls ‘Present Imperfect’. However, I find this terminology rather misleading given the range of uses discussed in this section. 16 MacKenzie (1961:vol. 1, §308b, p. 205) mentions this word order variation, but does not discuss the apparent markedness and relative rarity of the order subject preceding dê. 17 And notice further that this cannot naturally be rendered in English with going to.

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The immediate future is not always indicated with dê. Apart from the present tense, even past tense can be used when the clause begins with a demonstrative. Consider (29). In the novel, this is spoken by the secretary of Dr Perwer in response to the latter's comment that the secretary forgot to bring some orange juice for a guest in the office. Recognizing her fault, she uses the following words to indicate that she will immediately correct her fault. Notice the past tense on the main verb çuˆ m ‘I went’. Future time interpretation is pragmatically inferred in this situational context, so that a more idiomatic rendering of this utterance in English that reflects this pragmatic interpretation would be ‘I’ll get it right away.’ (29)

ev-e ez-a çuˆ -m bîn-im this-SRM I-ZF went-1SG get-1SG ‘I have already left to get it.’ (Evînîya be tux¨îb, p. 8)

In addition to indicating future tense, dê is often used in a way that expresses the speaker's estimation of the likelihood of the state of affairs rather than locating the state of affairs on the temporal axis. Consider example (30), where the speaker is arguing against his father's claim that the speaker's friends are not true ones: (30)

u ez bêj-im ruh¨-a xwe bi-d-in-e mi, dê and I say-1SG life-ZF self SBJV-give-3SG-IOM me, FUT d-in-e min, give-3PL-IOM me ‘and I say they would give their lives for me, they will give it for me,’ (Dostînî)

Notice the use of dê in the second clause: this is the second clause of a parallelism which began in the previous one, in which the subjunctive is used. In the context it is clear that the speaker intends to express the same thought The speaker's friends give their lives for him in a world where the need arises. This means that dê conveys an idea very similar to the subjunctive mood in the first clause of (30). In (31), the speaker does not refer to a future state of affairs, but expresses the fear that a certain event is likely to occur: (31)

Ev s¸ev-e dereng s¸ev herre dergeh-ê wî This night-SRM late night go.IMP.2SG door-ZF him bi-qut-e u bêj-ê: ‘‘Biray-ê Ramazan min SBJV-knock-IMP.2SG and say-3SG: ‘‘Brother-ZM Ramazan I êk-ê kus¸t-î u ev-e s¸urteh-ê li dîf mi ve one-OM killed-PTCP and this-SRM police-ZM at after me MV dê mi gir-in yan ew neyar-êt min il dîf FUT me catch-3PL or those blood.avengers-ZP me at after mi ve dê mi kuj-in u mi di-vê-t ev me MV FUT me kill-3PL and I IAM-want-3SG this s¸ev-e tu bi min Xudan k-î h¨eta sah¨ar-ê.’’ night-SRM you with me lord make-2SG until morning-OF.’’ ‘This night, late at night, go, knock at his door and tell him: ‘‘Brother Ramazan, I have killed someone and this police which is after me will catch me, or those avengers who are after me will kill me, and I ask that you let me stay in your house this night until morning.’’ ’ (Dostînî)

The following example (32) shows a use of dê that apparently doesn’t refer to future eventualities at all: (32)

Ev-e ye çîrok-a pir-a me: hindî em This-SRM is story-ZF bridge-ZF ours: whenever we ava-di-k-in, du ber j-ê di-mîn-in h¨eta build-IAM-make-1PL, two stones from-it IAM-remain-3SG until dîmahîk-ê, em dê deyn-in, pir-a me di-herrif-it. end-ZF we FUT lay-3PL, bridge-ZF ours IAM-crash-3SG. ‘This is the story of our bridge: Whenever we build the bridge and only two stones remain until it is finished, when we put them in, our bridge comes crashing down.’ (Piradelal)

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Here, dê occurs in a clause that expresses a conditional regularity: ‘whenever X happened, then Y happens’; ‘whenever we put the last two stones, then our bridge falls down.’ It does not denote future states of affairs at all. Rather, it expresses a regularity that was observed in the past and that the communicator expects to happen again. In (33), the communicator is using the future tense with an imperatival force18: he tells the hearer to do something. Compare this with the first sentence of (31) above, where the imperative is used pretty much to the same effect. (33)

Ev s¸ev-a got-ê saat dozdeh tu dê ç-î This night-ZF said-to.him hour twelve you FUT go-2SG mal-a wan dê bêj-î ‘‘bab-ê min-ê got-î he house-ZF theirs FUT say-2SG: ‘‘father-of my-ZM said-PTCP IJ ehe bila b-ê-t-e vêr-ê’’ IJ may SBJV-come-3SG-IOM here-OF’’ ‘ ‘‘This night,’’ he told him, ‘‘at twelve o’clock, you’ll go to his house and say to him: ‘My father said: may he come here immediately’ ’’ ’(Dostînî)

Consider (34) for yet another use of dê: (34)

Mêr-ê Sînem-ê jî ew jî ji wan tacir-a Husband-ZM Sinem-OF also he also from those traders-OP bî fe roj-a di-vîa-î çu-î viya was and day-ZF IAM-wanted-PTCP went-PTCP wanted sefer-î bi-k-it, bi-ç-it, bi-ç-it, em journey-OM SBJV-make-3SG, SBJV-go-3SG, SBJV-go-3SG, we dê bêj-in çu bajêr-ê S ¸ am-ê. FUT say-1PL went town-ZF Damascus-OF. ‘Sinem's husband was one of those traders and one day he wanted to go on a journey and wanted to go, let's say, he went to Damascus.’ (Sînem)

Here, dê is used to express an assumption made for concreteness. In English this idea is expressed by the phrase let's say X. In other words, the particle is used in a phrase that indicates that the speaker is just using an arbitrary example, here the name of a city that is a prototypical far away city where merchants travel to. In French, future tense is used in this kind of examples as well: on dira ‘we will say’19. A slightly different use is illustrated in (35): (35)

U Siyabend wext-ê ket wêrê jî yanî em dê bêj-în And Siyabend time-OF fell there also or we FUT say-1PL bê çare bi-bî. without hope SBJV-was. ‘And when Siyabend fell there it was, we can say, it was hopeless.’ (Xec)

The parenthetical phrase Em dê bêjin ‘We will say’ in example (35) indicates the communicator's claim that it is justified to use another, stronger expression for describing Siyabend's situation than what was used before. In English, this is expressed by the phrase we can say. In (36), the particle dê is used to express a generalization: (36)

18 19

Yanî ew dar-a ne bi qewet in belê zelam-ek That.is those trees-OP not with strength are but man-INDF ne hinde bi qewet jî dê s¸ê-t wan dar-a not that with strength also FUT can-3SG those trees-OP bi dest-ê xo hil-kês¸-itin. with hand-ZM self up-pull-3SG. ‘That is, those trees are not that strong, and even someone who is not that strong can pull those trees out with his hands.’ (Xec)

This is, of course, a usage of the future marker common across languages. I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.

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3.2. Dê as a modal particle In the previous section we have seen that even though dê is the typical way to express future tense, it has a wide variety of modal uses as well. In fact, in some of these modal uses time reference seems to be virtually irrelevant, for example in (36). This makes a primarily temporal analysis of the particle dê unlikely and shows that it has a lot in common with the English future indicator will, which is also generally seen as a modal auxiliary rather than a tense indicator (see for example Enç, 1996; Jaszczolt, 2005; Klinge, 1993). Klinge (1993) builds on this insight and proposes a detailed analysis of will and other English modals in metarepresentational terms. He expresses his analysis in the following terms: ‘The SITUATION REPRESENTATION turns out to be a true description of a WORLD SITUATION.’ (Klinge, 1993:345) By situation representation, Klinge means the explicature of the utterance, that is, the proposition the speaker intended to communicate explicitly (Klinge, 1993:320); the world situation is a mental representation of a state of affairs in the world arrived at by perception, memory or imagination (Klinge, 1993:322). The ‘turns out’ relation is one of verification: ‘ ‘‘turn out’’ is a matter of cognitive verification of the correspondence between the SITUATION REPRESENTATION and a WORLD REPRESENTATION’ (Klinge, 1993:346) Thus, his analysis amounts to the claim that will gives a procedural instruction to embed the proposition expressed in a metarepresentational frame as follows: (37)

There is a potential world in which a situation holds of which P (the explicature of the utterance) is a true representation

The procedural instruction requires the audience to pragmatically infer world and time variables for identifying a world situation that corresponds to the situation described in the explicature. Depending on the values of these world-time variables, the utterance can be understood as ‘more temporal’ or ‘more modal’, to use Jaszczolt's (2005) terms. Klinge shows that this analysis can handle both examples in (38): (38)

a. They will arrive next week. b. They will have arrived two hours ago.

While (38a) will be verifiable in a future world, (38b) is verifiable in an assumed past world. Thus, whether will receives a future time or modal interpretation depends on the kind of possible world in which verification of the proposition is promised to be achievable. The intended kind of possible world can be inferred on the basis of linguistic clues (as in (38b)) or contextual ones following the relevance-theoretic comprehension procedure. Klinge's analysis can serve as a starting point for an account of Behdini-Kurdish dê as well. However, this account raises two questions: first, how does Klinge's account ensure that the situation representation does not turn out to be a world representation holding in the actual world at a time in the past? It seems that there is an implicit non-past time restriction built into the notion of the verification process (the ‘‘turns out’’ operation). Second, the procedure claimed to be triggered by will involves the audience actually verifying whether the situation representation fits the representation of an eventuality in their representation of the world. This seems to require a lot of processing effort. Why should a procedural indicator trigger such an effortful inference process rather than guiding the audience to a less costly path? In the following section I want to present a procedural analysis of dê in the spirit of Klinge's analysis of English will that avoids these problems. 3.3. Dê and metarepresentation Adapting Klinge's account of English will to the Behdini-Kurdish future tense construction, I claim that the particle dê triggers the following procedure: (39)

Embed the explicature P of the utterance in a metarepresentational schema as follows, and determine the relevant world-time variables:The veracity of the claims made in U cannot be verified against states of affairs represented as facts in the mutual cognitive environment

Notice that this procedure saves the audience the effort of trying to verify whether the explicature actually describes a state of affairs in their world representation by indicating that such an undertaking would be futile. But this procedure alone seems to be too general as an account of dê, as utterances consistent with this metarepresentational frame could communicate (1) future states of affairs in some possible world, (2) counterfactual states of affairs in the present or past,

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and (3) distant past states of affairs for which no mutual manifestness can be expected. Of these three possibilities, only the first one is realized in clauses with dê. The third one, distant past states of affairs for which no mutual manifestness can be expected, is indicated by a different particle da, occurring in the same syntactic environment as dê, which I will discuss later. Suffice it here to say that the semantics of da makes it plausible that the non-use of dê for these states of affairs can be explained by appeal to the processing effort sensitivity of the pragmatic comprehension heuristic. The non-use of dê for marking counterfactual past or present states of affairs can be accounted for by claiming that dê triggers a second procedure as well: (40)

Embed the explicature P of the utterance in a metarepresentational schema as follows: The communicator commits to the factuality of the state of affairs described in the explicature of the utterance.

This procedure ensures that utterances involving dê can not be used to indicate counterfactual past or present states of affairs. Notice that the metarepresentational frames triggered by these procedures relate to the nature of the claims made in an utterance and hence to their persuasive power rather than to utterance comprehension per se. I take it that these procedures are linked to the argumentation module described in Mercier and Sperber (2009, 2011) and Sperber et al. (2010). Let us now return to examples (24)--(36) and see how this semantic analysis may explain the use of dê in these examples. (24)

belê hês¸ta ez ya di tengavî-yê da, u tu jî dê but still I ZF in trouble-OF CT and you also will kevî-ye di tengavî-yê mezin da. fall-IOM in trouble-OF big CT ‘but I am still in deep trouble, and you, too, will get into big trouble.’ (Mendê Tirsinok)

In her speech leading up to (24), fairy queen Ewran has just explained to the addressee (Mendê, the coward) how she came to meet him and summarizes this testimony with the comment in the first clause (‘But I am still in deep trouble’). So when she continues her speech with the second clause (‘and you, too, will get into big trouble’), conjoined to the first one with u ‘and’, the most easily accessible hypothesis is that she will talk about the same world, the actual world (‘actual’ from the point of view of the fictional characters in the fictional story world, of course) in which the speaker and addressee are both located. Dê indicates that the addressee cannot verify whether the eventuality described actually holds in the actual world as he his able to represent it. This condition can be harmonized with the expectation that the speaker is talking about the actual world only by assuming that the speaker intended to describe a state of affairs holding in the actual world in future time. This interpretation is manifestly relevant to the addressee, as being told of impending danger certainly gives rise to many cognitive effects: his mind will be filled with desires to know more about the nature of this danger, and thoughts about bad things that might happen to him and cause fear, as well as thoughts about how to avoid the impending danger, and so on. However, these cognitive effects will only satisfy the addressee's expectations of relevance if there is sufficient ground for him to believe that they will actually come true. The second procedure triggered by dê, indicating that the speaker commits to the factuality of the state of affairs she intends to describe, gives enough reason for the addressee to accept this description and also entertain the cognitive effects outlined as contributing to relevance. For many of these cognitive effects it is not necessary to narrow the temporal interval precisely, except that the further ahead in the future the dangerous things are understood to take place, the less urgency the addressee is likely to feel for entertaining thoughts about them, and hence the less relevant it will be for him. Therefore, an optimally relevant interpretation is one where the speaker is understood as describing a state of affairs in the actual world in the not too distant future.20 Much the same comments could be made regarding (25)--(28). The interpretations of these examples differ mostly in terms of the temporal interval from the present into the future at which the eventuality is expected to hold. However, example (26) deserves a closer look because of the unusual word order consisting of dê preceding the subject. In this example, too, it is the case that at the point where the clauses containing dê are processed, there are strong manifest expectations that the speaker intends to make a statement about the actual world. In this case, these expectations may be due to conventionalized ideas about how healer-client conversations should unfold, including the idea that the healer 20

On the interval problem in temporal interpretation, see Wilson and Sperber (1998).

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should announce a diagnosis, prescribe a cure and inform the client of the consequences of not implementing the cure.21 The clauses with dê obviously fit this latter slot, so that the most easily accessible interpretive hypotheses will include the assumption that the speaker is talking about the actual world. Again, the specification inherent in dê that the addressee cannot verify whether the state of affairs described in fact holds leads to the conclusion that the speaker must intend to refer to a future state of affairs, and the specification that dê furthermore guarantees the speaker's commitment to the factuality of this (future) state of affairs ensures the relevance of cognitive effects this interpretation gives rise to. Since the state of affairs described relates to the result of a ‘sickness’ if untreated, the intended time interval can be set to a medium range, perhaps a couple of months or a couple of years. So far, the interpretation follows largely the pattern described above for (24). However, in (26) an unusual word order involving the placement of dê and the subject is found. This is an unusual form, and processing it invariably incurs additional processing effort that must be offset by an adequate gain in cognitive effects. Assuming that clients of a healer are more likely to follow the healer's advice when he is very certain about the negative consequences that noncompliance with the prescribed cure will have, and assuming further that healers strongly prefer their clients to follow their advice, the addressee can conclude that the speaker intends to emphasize his certainty about the prediction that the client's son will die in the event of non-compliance with the speaker's advice.22 This conclusion can in turn lead to further inferences: that it is all the more urgent that the client follows the healer's advice, that the healer is very sure about the diagnosis and the necessity and effectiveness of the cure, that the client should put aside all doubts about the cure, and so on. These readily available inferences about the speaker's strength of commitment and the further implications they give rise to amount to a range of cognitive effects that plausibly offset the additional processing effort incurred by the unusual word order. Example (31) differs from (25)--(27) basically in the determination of the world variable: since the speaker is asking his friend for help, the most easily accessible assumption is that he believes the world in which the police or the blood avengers catch him is not necessarily the one in which he will be situated at a time, but one that the speaker believes can be avoided. Moreover, since he asks his friend to shelter him for the night, the addressee can assume that the speaker believes that by staying the night at his friend's house, he will escape capture. The speaker's commitment to the veracity of the imagined situation in which the speaker gets caught by police or the blood avengers can be interpreted as a strong plea to his friend to shelter him that night. On this interpretation, the utterance is likely relevant enough for the addressee to be worth his attention---it will fill his mind with many further cognitive effects, implications about what it means for him to help a friend, and what it means for him to help someone pursued by police and blood avengers, and so on. Example (32) is a rather complex one. There are several instances of ellipsis involved as well as parataxis where the obviously complex relationship between the clauses involved must be inferred. It is beyond the scope of this paper to give a full pragmatic account of this example. Suffice to say that at the time when the addressee gets to process the clause Em dê deynin ‘we lay [the last two or three stones]’,23 it is manifest that the speakers are talking of several past experiences. The use of the particle dê indicates that they intend to make a truth-claim about potential worlds, since the procedure triggered by dê points out that the state of affairs described by the explicature doesn’t hold true in their shared world knowledge. This is likely to give rise to further inferences about the beliefs of the speakers: that they believe their observations amount to regularities that they believe to re-occur on future occasions. On this interpretation, the utterance is likely to be relevant enough for it to be worth the attention of the addressee, as it fills their mind with further implications: the speakers do not understand why this regularity should hold, they do not know what to do, and so on. Turning to example (30), the most easily accessible hypothesis in interpreting clause (30e) is no longer that the state of affairs will hold in the actual world at a future time; rather, the talk is about a potential world. However, dê indicates that the communicator commits himself to the truth of the claim made. Hence, the speaker will be taken to express a conviction about the likelihood of the state of affairs expressed becoming materialized in a potential world. Notice that this implication about speaker's commitment does not arise as clearly with the subjunctive expression in the first clause of (30)24, as the subjunctive does not directly trigger a procedure indicating speaker commitment. Consequently, my analysis claims that the two clauses in (30) differ in their pragmatic impact: whereas the first one expresses the speaker's belief about how his friends would act if the need arises, the second adds an element of conviction on the part of the speaker.

21

For a detailed relevance-theoretic account of the role of speech conventions such as the one claimed in this analysis, see Unger (2006). In other words, this inference causes the addressee to pragmatically enrich the metarepresentational frame indicating speaker's commitment constructed as a result of the procedure (40) triggered by dê into one that expresses a high degree of commitment. 23 The object is elided; I have added it to the translation in square brackets. 24 On the analysis of the subjunctive in terms of potentiality and desirability see Wilson and Sperber (1988a) and Sperber and Wilson (1995). 22

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Example (33) showed the use of the future marker dê with imperatival force: (33)

Ev ¸sev-a got-ê saat dozdeh tu dê ç-î This night-ZF said-to.him hour twelve you FUT go-2SG mal-a wan dê bêj-î ‘‘bab-ê min-ê got-î house-ZF theirs FUT say-2SG: ‘‘father-of my-ZM said-PTCP he ehe bila b-ê-t-e vêr-ê’’ he ehe may SBJV-come-3SG-IOM here-OF’’ ‘‘‘This night,’’ he told him, ‘‘at twelve o’clock, you’ll go to his house and say to him: ‘My father said: may he come here immediately’ ’’ ’(Dostînî)

This utterance occurs as part of a dialogue between father and son. The father tells his son how he should test the friendship of his, the father's, own friends. This means that even before this sentence is uttered, the expectation is already created that the addressee (the son) should embed the proposition(s) expressed in a metarepresentational frame It is desirable for the speaker and potential for the addressee to bring about that P. But since the future construction with dê is used, the addressee will also have to use the metarepresentation frame The speaker commits to the factuality of the states of affairs described. These two metarepresentational frames together are only compatible with an imperatival reading: the speaker can commit to the truth of the state of affairs described only if he places the addressee under a strong obligation to bring about what is in his ability to do. Determining the temporal interval is straightforward since there is an explicit time reference. Since it is claimed that it is potential for the addressee to bring about P, the world intended must be the addressee's own world at a future time. This analysis explains why the use of the future with imperatival force often has this flavor of a stronger exhortation in comparison to a pure imperative. In the discussion of these examples we saw that the fixation of world or time variables in the metarepresentation frame may be more or less of an issue depending on the context of utterance: in examples (24)--(28), for instance, the determination of the time variable was more of an issue than the determination of the world variable, as the latter (but not the former) was immediately accessible due to strong expectations. Examples (34)--(36) can be seen as cases where the pragmatic determination of the world in which the state of affairs described is supposed to hold is more of an issue than determining the time at which it is to hold. These uses of dê occur in parenthetical expressions where the voice of the narrator is heard. The most easily accessible hypothesis about the intended world is that the speaker is making a claim about eventualities in the story world, at whatever time one can imagine this story to take place in that world. The relevance of these utterances is mostly to be found in the implications that the narrator's commitment to the factuality of the states of affairs described in the statements following the parenthetical gives rise to. In (34), these implications may be that the question of where Sinem's husband was traveling to is settled sufficiently and not to be made an issue anymore. In (35), the commitment to the factuality of the hopelessness of Siyabend's situation in the story world may give rise to thoughts of sympathy for the hero in predicament. Finally, in (36) a claim of speaker commitment to a generalization in all worlds is likely to meet relevance expectations in itself since this helps to explain to the audience why Siyabend's situation was so hopeless. Notice that there is no use of dê corresponding to Klinge's example (38b), that is, there is no occurrence of a future in the past (They will have arrived two hours ago). Instead, there is some evidence from informants that such utterances would be expressed in Behdini Kurdish with da: (41)

Ew da berî du demjimêr-an gehîte mal. He PC before two hours-OM arrived.at home. ‘He will have arrived home two hours ago.’ (Ed Magin, personal communication)

Before we can discuss the significance of these observations, we need to investigate the modal particle da. 3.4. The aspectual and temporal particle da The particle da can be used in several ways: first, as an indication of intended but unachieved actions (examples (42) and (43)), and second as an indication of habitual actions in the (often distant) past (examples (44) and (45)).25

25 MacKenzie (1961:vol. 1, §311a, p. 209) claims that ‘[t]he Present and Past Imperfect tenses (§§283 (a), 287 (a)) are practically coextensive, the Present being the more common, in giving the sense of a repeated or habitual action or state in the past’. However, the fact that the ‘Present Imperfect’---that is, the simple past with the imperfective aspect prefix di----is clearly more common strongly suggests that the forms are usually not interchangeable and therefore not really coextensive. The examples he discuss involve states of affairs that have been repeated over a considerable span of time, and though some instances of these states of affairs may be seen as having occurred in the more recent past, certainly others haven’t.

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(42)

Explanation given by native speaker: ‘‘my friend and I want to go to the field and sow wheat. But it started to rain, and we turned around before we got there. On our way back, you meet us and ask: ‘where did you go?’ and we answer:’’ em da genim-î çîn-in we PC wheat-OM grow-3PL ‘we wanted to sow wheat.’

(43)

(Perî Ewran explains to Mendê what almost happened before he picked her up when she was in the shape of a tortoise and the demon that was persecuting her in the shape of a tortoise egg:) Her bi küseletî da min ke-t-e jin u All in tortoiseness PC me make-3SG-IOM wife and pas¸î da min wergêrî-t-e reng-ê dêw-a, afterwards PC me change-3SG-IOM shape-of demons-OP ‘Even in the shape of a tortoise he would have made [or: was about to make] me his wife and afterwards he would make me into the shape of demons’ (Mendê Tirsinok)

(44)

In a tape-recorded text about the history of the narrator's home village, he talks about the occupation of the villagers in former times. ew da genim-î çîn-in they PC wheat-OM grow-3PL ‘In old time they used to plant wheat.’

(45)

jiyan-a wan ser tîcaret-ê bî, ser hatin u çun-ê life-of their on trading-OF was, on coming and going-OF bî, da ç-in bu xêr bajêr, da hinde tis ¸ t-a was, PC go-3PL to other city, PC some things-OP b-in wêrê, u da hinde tis¸t-a zivirr-în-in bring-3PL there, and PC some things-OP return-CAUS-3PL ve. again. ‘their existence was based on trade, on traveling, they would go to an other city, they would carry some goods there and they would bring other goods back again.’ (Sînem)

As a variant of the uses illustrated in (42) and (43), da is also used in the consequent clause (apodosis) of conditionals the antecedent of which is unrealized, as in the following examples: (46)

heker em ne-hatiban, ew-î da em ne-dît-în if we not-had.come, he-OM PC 1PL.DIR not-saw-3PL ‘If we had not come, he would not have seen us’ (MacKenzie, 1961:vol. 1, §315, p. 213)

At first sight, these uses seem quite unrelated: the indication of intended but unachieved actions seems to involve a modal sense, whereas the indication of a habitual distant past involves an aspectual sense. However, Denise Bailey (Bailey, 2004 and personal communication) pointed out to me that this ambiguity between modal and aspectual uses is attested in several Indo-Iranian languages. Thus, Farsi uses the same form (prefix mi- þ past stem þ person ending) to express the habitual past and intended but unachieved eventualities. In the Kurmancî dialect of the Tur Abdin area in Turkey there is a form consisting of the subjunctive prefix bi- followed by the past stem and a conditional suffix, which is most often used to indicate counterfactual, but also to indicate habitual past states of affairs. Windfuhr (1989:257) comments about the modal system of New West Iranian that ‘In most dialects, however, counterfactuals are formally identical with the forms of the imperfective past and perfective past’. Even the English auxiliary would seems to preserve this ambiguity, as witnessed in the English translations of the examples. Thus it seems that this particular distribution of uses should be caused by a common underlying semantic notion, but mood and aspect are usually treated as distinct ones. I would like to argue that there is indeed a common semantic meaning underlying this distribution of uses, but this semantic meaning involves neither mood nor aspect. Recall the first procedure that dê was claimed to trigger, the procedure described in (39). We noted that this metarepresentational frame is compatible with (1) future states of affairs in some possible world, (2) counterfactual states of affairs in the present or past, and (3) distant past states of affairs for

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which no mutual manifestness can be expected. The examples given for da realize the latter two categories. Therefore it seems that in order to specify the semantics of da we need to find another procedure that in combination with (39) makes the use of da inappropriate for describing future states of affairs. What descriptions of counterfactual states of affairs and descriptions of distant past states of affairs have in common is that while the audience cannot verify these descriptions in the mutual cognitive environment, the communicator can in hers. In other words, the communicator has privileged access to information about the state of affairs described, she is a good source for the audience to acquire knowledge about the state of affairs in question. This is evident in (42): the communicator is talking about what he and his friends intended to do, and people can be trusted to be a reliable source for information about their intentions. Similarly in (43): Perî Ewran was describing her past experiences with the demon, and is arguably in a good position to make true statements about the intentions of her persecutor. In (45), the communicator talked about what the people in his village used to do; he grew up in this village and has seen what his parents and grandparents used to do and must furthermore have heard the old people tell stories from even more distant times. So he can be taken to give reliable information about past states of affairs that the audience cannot verify in their cognitive environment. Counterfactual conditionals such as (46) express suppositions made by the communicator and are therefore dependent on her intentional states to which the communicator has privileged access. Descriptions of future state of affairs differ from these types of statements in one crucial respect: the communicator cannot verify the state of affairs in her cognitive environment either. All she can do is express her commitment to the truth of the proposition in some potential or possible world (T-commitment in the sense of Kissine, 2008), but she cannot portray herself as a reliable source to justify her commitment. Let us suppose that da triggers the following procedure, in addition to the one in (39): (47)

Embed the proposition expressed by the utterance in a metarepresentational frame of the following kind: The communicator is a good authority for making a true claim involving the proposition expressed in this utterance.

Thus, da provides a clue for the audience's attribution of commitment to the communicator, which according to Morency et al. (2008) is an integral part of the pragmatic comprehension process. The metarepresentation frame indicated by da allows the audience to infer that the communicator has strong justifications or evidence for her claim, which in turn provides a reason for the audience not only to comprehend the communicator's claim but also to believe it. In other words, the metarepresentation frame allows the audience to attribute what Kissine (2008) calls J-commitment (a commitment made by the speaker that she has demonstrative justifications for the proposition expressed) to the speaker, a stronger form of commitment than T-commitment. This analysis is interesting because it claims that the striking syntactic similarities between the particles da and dê are paralleled in semantics: both dê and da share the property that one of the procedures they trigger is the same. Furthermore, it highlights also the difference between the semantic impact of these particles: these are conditioned by the second procedure that each of these particles trigger. I have argued above that the procedure (40) triggered by dê can explain why dê is appropriate for describing future states of affairs as well as other modal uses of future particles known from other languages, and why it is inappropriate to be used for describing counterfactuals. It was noted that this procedure on its own does not exclude the application of dê for describing distant past states of affairs. The procedure (47) that I claim is triggered by da sheds more light on this issue: this procedure gives the audience grounds to accept the communicator's claim not just on the basis of her making a commitment, but on the basis that the communicator has good grounds to be committed to the truth of her statement. Given that the latter provides a stronger reason to accept the communicator's statement than the former, it follows that a communicator aiming at optimal relevance must be expected to use da rather than dê to describe distant past states of affairs. The claim that one of the functions of da is to indicate the communicator's claim to have good enough grounds for making a true statement can also explain why da and not dê is used to express future-in-the-past statements such as He will have arrived home two hours ago (example (41)). Such utterances are essentially suppositions: the communicator has grounds to infer that there is good reason to believe that something is the case, and it is on these grounds that the speaker is making her claim. This is appropriately indicated with da, if the proposed analysis is correct. Recall that da, if used to refer to distant past states of affairs, seems to be restricted to habitual ones. This restriction may be pragmatically explained. There is a gap in the paradigm: while it is possible to unambiguously indicate imperfective past states of affairs by adding the imperfective prefix di- to the simple past tense, this form does not unambiguously indicate distant past. There are tense forms that may be used to unambiguously indicate distant past states of affairs: the perfect and the past perfect. But these forms can’t take the imperfective prefix di-. So there is no means to unambiguously indicate imperfective (including habitual) distant past states of affairs by means of tense and aspect markers. However, it is possible to fill this gap by using the modal particle da in the construction described above.

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4. Conclusion In this paper I have looked at three particles in Behdini Kurdish. What they have in common is that a metarepresentational analysis shows the notional unity of their sometimes surprising range of uses. In the case of ka, this leads to the rejection of an ambiguity or homonymy analysis. In the case of dê and da, this leads to the discovery of subtle semantic similarities that could motivate their obvious syntactic similarities. Furthermore, these particles have in common that they are best understood as triggering pragmatic processing procedures related to metarepresentation rather than as conveying conceptual content for metarepresentations. However, the metarepresentational procedures triggered by the respective particles differ in their cognitive function. Ka triggers a metarepresentational procedure that affects utterance comprehension. Dê and da, on the other hand, trigger procedures that affect the epistemic evaluation of the claims made in the utterance. This distinction in cognitive function is crucial for understanding the usage patterns of these particles, particularly of ka. This in turn provides strong empirical support for Wilson's (2011) claim that linguistic procedure triggers should be expected on theoretical grounds not to always have a comprehension function, but that at least some may rather have an argumentative function. Acknowledgements I warmly thank Joan Baart, Denise Bailey, Muhammad Saleh Berwari, Henrik Liljegren, Ed Magin, Michael Maletich, John Roberts, Newzad Shokri, and Deirdre Wilson for discussions of and comments on drafts of this paper. Also, I express my sincere thanks to the anonymous referees, who have made invaluable detailed and insightful comments which lead to many improvements. Furthermore, I express my thanks to the Kurdish Department of the University of Dohuk for their hospitality during my guest stay in the academic year 2004--5, during which much of the empirical research used in this paper was carried out. A grant from the initiative ‘Pro Geisteswissenschaften’ of the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz helped me to focus on the development of this research in its critical phase, and I gratefully acknowledge this support. Last but not least I want to thank Jotyar Bamarni, Loqman Nuˆ redîn Hassan and Nasir Zaxoyî, who taught me crucial aspects of Kurdish language, culture and literature, provided texts for study and helped me understand them better. Appendix List of Kurdish texts Published texts Titel Information Evîniya bê tux¨îb [Love without borders.] Novel by Jotyar Bamarni. Freiburg, Germany: Bamarni Publishing House 1999. Mendê Tirsinok [Mend, the Coward.] Folk story edited and published by Hizirvan. In: Evsane: Narîna Gulbarîn. [Folk Tales: The Tears of Gulbareen.] Collected by Hizirvan. Dohuk, Iraq: Spirêz 2003. Pp. 13--38. Xirro [Xirro.] Short story by Qeyran Ferec Ebdal. In: Sîbera Mirinê. [The Shadow of Death.] Short Stories by Qeyran Ferec Ebdal. Dohuk, Iraq: 1994. Pp. 28--42. Transcribed recorded oral texts Identifier Dostînî

Sînem

Information [Friendship.] Traditional story illustrating a proverb about friendship. Recorded by Nasir Zaxoyi, Zakho, Iraq, 1992. [Sinem.] Folk story. Recorded by Mile Nasir Zaxoyi, Zakho, Iraq, 1992.

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