Doer and object
The verb agrees with what was acted on.
By the end of this lessonSay who did what to whom, and make the verb agree with the object.
The idea
With these past verbs, the ending matches the object, not the doer. Dîtin (to see) has the past stem dît. Min ew dît means “I saw him / her / it”, with no ending. Min tu dîtî means “I saw you”, and Te ez dîtim means “You saw me”. Wî em dîtin means “He saw us”. To make it negative, put ne- before the verb: Min ew nedît.
See it in a sentence
The ending is the tricky part: it follows the object. Compare Min tu dîtî and Te ez dîtim: the verb is the same, but the ending changes with the object.
Build it step by step
- Find the agent (who did it) and the object (who or what was affected). In the standard past transitive pattern taught here, the agent takes an oblique form.
- A personal-pronoun object is direct. The verb agrees with that object, not with the agent: Min tu dîtî has -î because the object is tu.
- A third-person singular object gives the bare past stem. A plural object gives -in. This explains why xwend alone is not the form for every past reading sentence.
| Object | Example | Agreement |
|---|---|---|
| ez | Te ez dîtim. | -im |
| tu | Min tu dîtî. | -î |
| ew (singular) | Me ew dît. | ∅ |
| em / hûn / ew (plural) | Wê em dîtin. | -in |
Take a sentence apart
she: oblique agent
us: direct plural object
saw: agrees with em
English “I saw you” keeps I as subject. Kurmanji expresses the agent with min in this past pattern. Changing the agent alone does not change the verb.
A common trap
Incorrect: Min tu dîtim.
Correct: Min tu dîtî.
-im would agree with an ez object. The object here is tu, so use -î.
Grammar reference: Thackston, Past tense and oblique pronouns