A Prototype Approach to Kurdish Prefixes

Abstract: This paper sheds light on the semantic description of some Kurdish prefixes, important resources provided by language to derive new words and encode different perspectives taken by a speaker towards activities, events and states. It attempts to carry out the investigation within the framework of Cognitive Linguistics. The paper tries to substantiate two cognitive principles. The first principle is that all language elements have semantic import. Applying this principle to Kurdish morphology, we argue that Kurdish prefixes are meaningful in the sense that their presence as derivational morphemes causes a shift in the meanings of the derived words. The second principle is that language elements are polysemous by nature, i.e. having multiple senses. Applying this principle to Kurdish morphology, we argue that Kurdish prefixes display a network of numerous senses. The senses gather around a central sense, called the prototype. The other senses, called the periphery, extend from the prototype on the basis of semantic principles