Copyright

Nikita Kuzin

Published On

2026-01-07

Page Range

pp. 109–148

Language

  • English

Print Length

40 pages

2. Passive Voice in Ṭuroyo

This chapter investigates the passive voice in Ṭuroyo, a Neo-Aramaic language spoken in Ṭurabdin (Turkey) and its diaspora communities in Europe. It focuses on derived detransitive stems (or T-stems), which express passive, anticausative, autocausative, and facilitative semantics. The study provides a synchronic analysis of the passive constructions in Ṭuroyo, their pragmatic functions, and their interaction with tense, aspect, agreement, and genre. The diachronic development of these stems and the possible influence of language contact, particularly with Arabic and Kurdish, are also examined.

Contributors

Nikita Kuzin

(author)

(PhD, Freie Universität Berlin, 2024) recently defended his doctoral thesis ‘Voice and Valency Change in the Neo-Aramaic Language Ṭuroyo’, written under the supervision of Shabo Talay. He has worked on the documentation and typology of Ṭuroyo. His research interests include syntax and corpus linguistics, as well as linguistic typology and historical linguistics. He recently published a glossary for the Neo-Aramaic dialect of Midyat together with Otto Jastrow and Shabo Talay: Der neuaramäische Dialekt von Midyat (Miḏyoyo), vol. 2, Glossar (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2024).