On the Homonymy and Different Functions of Bound Morpheme “-æ” in Malekshahi Kurdish

Homonymy is a phenomenon in which different linguistic categories have the same phonological and orthographic form. This study aims to investigate different functions of “-æ “in Malekshahi Kurdish. The data is collected from native speakers of Malekshahi Kurdish. Hopper (1996) and Heine and et. al.  (1991) as theoretical frameworks are used to examine the reasons for different functions of morpheme “-æ “and also the reasons for the homonymy of morpheme “-æ”. The findings show that different linguistic categories are represented by the bound morpheme “-æ “. It may be used in various contexts as a proclitic, inflectional or derivational affix. As an inflectional affix, it is suffixed to nouns and noun phrases to signal definiteness in Malekshahi Kurdish. As a proclitic, “-æ” is suffixed to verbs to function as an auxiliary or linking verb to represent perfect aspect. It is also used as an applicative form of two prepositions “to” and “in” which are attached to some given verbs. “-æ” is, also, used to represent two derivational affixes to make onomatopoeias and some nouns. Each manifestation of “-æ” has undergone some phonological, morphological, and syntactic changes due to grammaticalization which is the underlying reason for this homonymy.