Grammatical Schemas in Construction Morphology According to the Model of Haspelmath and Sims (2010): The Duhok Dialect as a Case Study

Abstract

     Construction Morphology is a modern linguistic theory that views the word as a fundamental unit, rejecting the notion that words are merely composed of the concatenation of meaningless morphemes. This study focuses on "Grammatical Schemas," specifically the inflectional system in the Duhok dialect. The primary objective of the research is to test the application of the Haspelmath and Sims -2010  model in analyzing complex grammatical phenomena such as tense, number (plurality), indefiniteness,… etc.

     The study adopts a descriptive analytical approach based on the Haspelmath & Sims model to elucidate the relationship between form and meaning in words formed by grammatical affixes in the Duhok dialect, rather than adhering to classical rules of morpheme addition.

     The results indicate that the inflectional system in the Duhok dialect is best understood as a "Construction Network." The Haspelmath and Sims model successfully analyzed irregular words by treating sub-schemas as specific, stored schemas within the construction network, rather than as exceptions or deviations from the rule. Consequently, irregular words become a natural part of the grammatical system, processed via the same mechanisms as regular words in the mind of the Duhok speaker. The study concludes that the grammar of the Duhok dialect is a "Word-based" system, rather than a "Morpheme-based" one. The research consists of two parts: the first is titled "Mechanisms of Construction Morphology and the Haspelmath and Sims Model for Word Analysis," and the second is titled "Grammatical Construction Networks in the Duhok Dialect: A Morphosyntactic and Semantic Analysis".