Argument structure in Kurdish VPs

In this article, we focus on the structural position of internal and external arguments of the verb in Kurdish. Given the variable position of internal arguments and their respective word order in Kurdish VP, according to which different internal arguments appear before and after the V head (CPs always follow the V head, DPs in unmarked constructions precede the V head and PPs attend both positions in linear order), determining the merge position of the internal argument in the syntax, proves to present challenges. Drawing on the Uniformity of Theta-role Assignment Hypothesis (UTAH), as well as evidence from Kurdish data and double object constructions (DO), we analyze different VP constructions in Kurdish. The results show that merge positions of different internal arguments are the same and needless to say different word order patterns are a result of a kind of movement process. According to LCA (Kayne, 1994) movement of the DP objects would be inevitable which has some consequences in conformity with Holmberg’s Generalization. Furthermore, the object position, realization of the EPP and word order in Kurdish VP will be addressed.