Errors Made by Kurdish Speaking Community in Erbil City Asst

Obviously all speakers make errors while speaking and thus producing utterances that are different from what one intended to produce. In this paper, the researcher tries to detect some of the speech errors and their kinds. These errors are made by the Kurdish speaking community living in Erbil city and speaking different Sorani dialects. The researcher also tries to show the importance of such errors in understanding the structure of the Kurdish language and the mental lexicon and the way this knowledge is stored in the mind of the Kurdish language speaker.


Introduction:
It is a fact that no one can avoid making errors while speaking even native speakers of any language and the speakers of Kurdish are no exception. In this paper, the researcher tries to detect some of the speech errors made by Kurdish speakers in Erbil city. "Erbil city" does not imply that the data collected are restricted to errors made by speakers of Erbil dialect but rather they include errors made by all Erbil city inhabitants including colleagues and students speaking different Sorani dialects with their varieties side by side the loan words used in their utterances since the spoken language is the source of data. The data also include errors made by people on local television and radio programs.
(Note: MLA style is used for in-text citation and for works cited)

Error in Language:
While data on production of language are obtained through experiments and testing, considerable amount of knowledge can be obtained while listening to people speaking naturally i.e. without being asked to involve in a conversation. One kind of knowledge that is obtained in this way is the knowledge obtained through slips of the tongue (hence referred to as SOT as used by Nordquist) that are used interchangeably with speech erross (Fromkin,Rodman and Hyams 176;Trask 159). The brain of the human contains the necessary knowledge to be used in producing and understanding language. But factors of psychology and physiology such as oversight, forgetting, stammering or feeling tired interfere while producing language, such as saying the journal of the editor instead of saying the editor of the journal. These errors can be used as proof for understanding language structure since the errors that are made are natural errors made by ordinary people not as a result of disease or damage in the brain (Garman 151;Fromkin,Rodman and Hyams 13,74,176).
Following what has been mentioned, the most appropriate definitions for SOT, i.e. slips of the tongue (as mentioned earlier), would be either Nordquist's definition which is "A mistake in speaking, usually trivial, sometimes amusing" or "An involuntary deviation of an intended utterance that often results in ungrammaticality, nonsense words, anomaly" (Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams 594, 595).
Many people find speech errors amusing; yet these errors frustrate some, but lately these errors have been used as data for psychological studies and have been regarded as source for linguists in their research (Psycholinguistics 2).
Wray and Bloomer (24) state that errors are made unconsciously. These errors are detected and studied in ordinary people's utterances. The errors support the way people acquire words and strings of words. In the studies that are conducted they noticed that lexical words are more liable to be substituted than other kinds of words (prepositions, for example) such as "He is planting the garden in the flowers". They further state that sounds also are exchanged in words as in shinking sips for sinking ships. Another point which they mentioned is that the suffix that is isolated from the word it is attached to, the word is to be moved while the suffix is attached to the transposed word. The example below shows how the suffix behaves ("a" is the intended utterance, "b" is the actual utterance or the error): 1. a. "The children are going to school".
b. "The children are schooling to go".
(qtd in Garrett 1976) Garman claims that errors show how language works and they point out the areas at which language fails to function properly. Speakers are usually aware that what they said was not what they wanted to say. Most of these errors are in articulation when the position of the sounds is exchanged. This kind of error is called spoonerism, a word used after Dr. Spooner who used to make errors of this kind, as in daw real for raw deal (151) or as in: 2. a. "You have missed all my history lectures; you have wasted the whole term". 2.b."You have hissed all my mystery lectures; you tasted the whole worm". (Radford et al. 114) Tongue-twister is one of the errors that people make. If someone is asked to repeat certain expressions or combination of words several times, one can notice the errors they produce when saying what they are asked to repeat such as Peggy Babcock (Radford et al. 114) or repeat the sentence She sells sea shells on the seashore (Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary OALD).
There is also Freudian slip or parapraxis which is "an error in speech memory, or physical action that is interpreted as accounting due to the interference of an unconscious ……… subdued wish, conflict, or train of thought guided by the ego and rules of correct behavior" ("Freudian slip").
Gabriel states that SOT are different from Freudian slip as the latter has hidden meaning for the error produced. This means that there is a connection between the error and "the unconscious mind". The mistake cannot be regarded as unintended but it reveals what is stored in the mind of the speaker. Freudian slips mean that the errors made are never errors "but our unconscious mind slipping through into our speech" such as when someone calls their friend by their parents name.
In this paper, SOT which include errors in sounds and in words are dealt with without reference to Freudian slip or tongue twisters.

Errors and Language Structure:
Studying speech errors is important in explaining the way language works and the way the "utterances" are constructed in the mind of speakers (Trask 159; Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams 316).
The knowledge that is stored in the mind of man is illustrated through errors. Errors show how the individual can reconstruct the sounds of the language when the position of the sound, be it vowel or consonant, is exchanged, e.g., " mall tan" for "tall man" and "fool the pill" instead of "fill the pool". Even more than that a feature of a sound can transfer into another as in plack gat for black cat (Denham and Lobeck 84). What was stated confirms Fromkin's claim stating that "…..The collection and analysis of such errors provide important clues to how speech is organized in the nervous system" (181).
Denham and Lobeck also state that despite calling slips as errors, in fact these errors are made on the basis of the system of the language. "Slips are not arbitrary; rather, they are patterned" (85). They actually show human's ability to express the grammar that is stored in the mind of every speaker.
Studying SOT reveals that the actual utterances are in concord with the rules that arrange the combination of sounds; one might produce slips of the tongue as tips of the slangue but one cannot produce the expression tlips of the songue because the consonants tl-combined as a cluster do not start a word in English. Researchers have arrived at the conclusion that states that human brain has the ability of editing (Trask 159, 160, 161) and Radford et al. state that "speech errors never give rise to phonological violations of phonological combinations that would be disallowed by the language" (117). Carroll (201) states that there is a process that intermediates a person's plan to utter and the production of the utterance itself. This process makes editions to the utterance to see the acceptability of that utterance Errors show speakers' ability to exchange parts of a word or position of words in accordance with the system of language structure, unconsciously and without thinking (Denham and Lobeck 126), e.g. , 3. a. "lighting a fire" b. "fighting a liar" Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams (434) confirm that those slips support the idea that speech does not constitute single words but it is a string of words, phrases, clauses and sentences.
Slips shed light on the structure of the syllable and the sequence of consonants and the errors that happen between syllables belong to one part in each syllable (Crystal 254; Psycholinguistics 3) i.e. words having the same number of syllables, the error that occurs in a syllable corresponds to the same number of the syllable of the other word (Psycholinguistics 7 as qtd (quoted) in Nooteboom 1969) and furthermore, Radford et al. (114,115) state that the exchange is onset for onset, coda for coda but not the coda of a word for the onset of another, e.g., You hissed all my mystery lectures for You missed all my history lectures but *a tog and a kad for a dog and a cat is a non-occurring slip.
Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams (176) show that slips can also serve as proof for "semantic properties". The following expressions in which words are exchanged support that, e.g., 4. a. Jim was too early b. Jim was too late. 5. a. "My gums bled".
The words that are substituted are not done haphazardly but they have semantic similarities or relations; gums and tongue are meronyms; early and

Error in Kurdish:
Kurdish speakers, as any other language community, make errors when they speak and what they utter would be different from what they intended to convey. The errors made cover errors in phonemes such as /la tobu:nawa datbi:nim/ for /la kobu:nawa datbi:nim / or / ba:ybot/ for /ba:ykot/ as well as errors in words as in / la ramaza:n dabe cawderi ma:ng bikan / for / la ramaza:n dabe cawderi ba:za:r bikan/.
The data concerning the errors are collected, as stated earlier, through listening to people speaking naturally and to people speaking on local TV and radio programs i.e. from real situations. Those people produced different kinds of errors in sounds and in words and these errors are classified according to their types by the researcher .
Errors in phonemes are more common than other types of speech errors, for example in words. The errors in phonemes can take place either "within a word or more frequently will occur between separate words" (Psycholinguistics 5). This statement is confirmed in Kurdish through the data collected.
In making errors in phonology, a vowel replaces another, a consonant exchanges a consonant, but a consonant would never replace a vowel (Psycholinguistics 6; Speech error 10) and this proves that the information in the mental lexicon is arranged "in terms of sound" (Speech error 9).
Error in sound includes exchange errors, anticipation, perseveration, substitution, addition, omission and error in syllables (Radford et al.114,115; Psycholinguistics 3-4, 7). The researcher believes that error in syllables is not a separate type of error since it co-occurs with other kinds of error (Psycholinguistics 7). Below, the errors that are made by Erbil inhabitants are explained and example(s) for each kind is/ are provided ( The phonemes that are used in the Kurdish language are taken from Ahmad 21-22): 1. Exchange errors: Exchange means that the sounds in two words replace each other i.e. they "swap position" and sometimes the error may occur within a word (Wray and Bloomer 24 as qtd in Garret 1976; Radford et al.114;Psycholinguistics 5). Some examples of exchange errors are the following: 6. a. /la sar ta: pa:/ b. /la sar pa: ta:/ 7. a. /ša:rawa:ni/ b. /ša:nawa:ri/ 8. a. /mila:ka:t/ b. /mika:la:t/ 9. a. /parlama:n/ b. /parmala:n/ Research in this field confirms, as it was stated earlier, that errors happening between syllables belong to one part in each syllable and that the exchange is onset for onset, coda for coda but not the coda of a word or of a syllable for the onset of another (Crystal 254; Radford et al.115; Psycholinguistics 3, 7) for example it is impossible to produce /šakr u hanji:r/ as /hakr u ranji:r/ since the exchange here is onset for coda. Yet; the new arrangement of the words does not violate the combination of phonemes in the language (Trask 160,161) as any native speaker of Kurdish can find these combinations in well-formed words. This proves that the speech is "well planned" in advance (Psycholinguistics 5). Nordquist contributes to this knowledge stating that exchanging final phonemes of words is as common as exchanging phonemes at the beginning of words, for instance producing /dab u bak/ for /dak u bab/. What was mentioned above about exchange errors is true of exchange errors in the Kurdish language but it is noticed that exchange errors is not so common in Kurdish and that they rarely occur between words while they are nearly restricted to exchange within words as we noticed above in which only (6 b) is between words while the rest (7 b, 8 b and 9 b) are within words. 2. Anticipation: This kind of error means that a certain sound is expected to occur in a word as it exists in a following part of that word or in a word that follows. This means that a phoneme would replace an earlier one ( b. /piliči la: markazi/ If example (10 b) is examined, one can notice that two errors have occurred in one word simultaneously and systematically; in the /b/s of /kaba:bi/ in which the onsets of the second and third syllables are replaced by the onsets of the corresponding syllables of the following word. This systematic error leads us to believe that this anticipation error is error between syllables (Psycholinguistics 7).Two other simultaneous errors occurred in example (18 b): the /l/ is substituted and the /k/ is anticipated but in this example, the /k/ that is anticipated, is converted into /č/ because the pronunciation of /k/ is accommodated (Radford et al. 117) in accordance with the way /k/ is pronounced in this speaker's dialect. In (12 b), the phoneme /k/ that is anticipated is the real pronunciation of / č/ before it is accommodated by the speaker. It is just the reverse of the process in (18 b). The mental lexicon converted /č/ into its origin before producing it (Carroll 201).This is in concord with Trask's claim (161) stating that human mind has the ability of editing. Concerning the position of errors, only (16 b) exhibits error in final position. 3. Perseveration: This is just the opposite of anticipation in which a "unit" that appears early, will be repeated later replacing the original one ( Dell and Reich 20; Psycholinguistics 5), e.g., 19. a. /ganm u jo/ b. /ganm u go/ 20. a. /la bin jisra/ b. /la bin bisra/ 21. a. /xinka:waka:n be sar u šwenin / 21. b. /xinka:waka:n be sar u swenin Researchers agree that most of the errors that occur in phonemes are anticipation i.e. they take place too often, but perseveration is less frequent than anticipation (Dell and Reich 20; Psycholinguistics 5).
Depending on the data collected, the researcher has found that in Kurdish perseveration is as common, if not more common, as anticipation. 4. Substitution: When one sound is replaced by a different phoneme is called substitution (Radford et  b. /xa:s/ In (39 b), two substitutions have occurred; the /x/ and the /s/, the last one having accommodated its pronunciation (Carroll 200) as /x/ is nearer to /s/ than it is to /z/ as both are voiceless consonants ( Ahmad 55).
Examining the examples above reveals that substitution is very common in Kurdish as it was the case with anticipation and perseveration. 5. Addition: Addition means adding a phoneme to the word which is still a meaningful word (Radford et al. 114) , e.g.,  (40 b , 41 b), but the researcher has noticed that the two words /da:ništa:naka:n/ and /daduga:/ in (42 b, 43 b) are non-words. In (41 b), besides addition, another phonological process is involved and that is the edition process by which the /z/ has been changed into /s/ to ease the pronunciation because uttering /siya:zi/ is not easy . This is another proof that the brain has the ability to edit (Trask 161). In the last example (44 b), two different kinds of error have occurred; addition of /y/ and omission of /n/.

Substitution:
In making this error the speaker selects the words in a wrong way (Radford et al. 207) as shown below: 59. a. /šapoleči bafir ba:ri:n/ b. /šapoleči ba:ra:n ba:ri:n/ 60. a. /ba:sma:n kird la ra:birdu:da/ 60. b. /ba:sma:n kird la daha:tu:da/ 61. a. /jargit nasute/ b. /jargit bisute/ 62. a. /la ba:ray a:za:d kirdini šari mu:siĬ/ 62. b. /la ba:ray a:za:d nakirdini šari mu:siĬ…. We notice that the words that are involved in substitution are related semantically (Speech Error 9) i.e. the two words are of the same word class, they are synonymous, or are opposites or are members of the same group as will be explained below. Another fact is that the words that are high in frequency are more often used instead of words indicating low frequency, but not the reverse (Radford et al. 207,208) and the wrong words that are produced are existing words (Trask 160) and this is obvious in the examples above.
Substitutions can be used as proof for semantic structure of the mental lexicon or it could be said that the mental knowledge that speakers have about semantics is revealed via substituting words in phrases and sentences when substituting words exhibit different associations as mentioned earlier (Radford et al. 209; Denham and Lobeck 300 as qtd in Fromkin Speech Error Database). For instance /qa:t/ and /ja:/ in (63 a and b) are duplication words, /a:za:d kirdin/ and /a:za:d nakirdin/ ( 62 a and b) are opposites and /bafir/ and /ba:ra:n/ (59 a and b) are weather words and so on. Among errors in words in the Kurdish language, substitution is the most common one. 3. Word exchange: This error happens when the speaker exchanges two words in the same sentence or expression (Radford et al. 207), e.g., 70. a. /agar xa:ni:t darkay pewa nabu/ 70. b. /agar darkat xa:ni: pewa nabu/ Exchanging words usually involve words that are different in meaning besides the difference in concept but they belong to the same word class and have some kind of semantic relation and that the substitutions are done unconsciously but based on the information arranged in the mental lexicon. (Radford et al. 209; Trask 161; Denham and Lobeck 300, 301). This is obvious in example (70 b) in which the words /xa:ni/ and /darka/ that belong to the same semantic field "building" are exchanged (Crystal 157). In addition, since the two words belong to the same word class i.e. transposing nouns with nouns, verbs with verbs, they can perform the same job, and they can fit both the "slots" as "fillers" (Radford et al. 208 b. /ba pa:ši ema/ It is worth noting that identifying most speech errors, except a few of them, is a difficult task; in other words, an error may be labeled under more than one type (Speech Error 1; Psycholinguistics 4-5). The errors /la sar pa: ta:/ in (6 b) can be classified as exchange of phonemes or of words, and /puca/ in (36 b, 57 b) can be phoneme substitution or a blend and some other errors behave similarly.
All in all what preceded support Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams' claim (434) stating that those slips support the idea that speech does not constitute single words but it is a string of words, phrases, clauses and sentences and make us believe that speech errors can serve as "insight" into the way speech is produced. Linguists cannot depend on speech; as speech is not accessible while the analysis of errors uttered in isolation or in a sentence can help in understanding speech production (Psycholinguistics 2, 3).
To sum up, it is convenient to quote from Radford et al. who state that "Speech errors are not a random phenomenon, they reflect levels of representation in the mental lexicon" (209).

Conclusion:
The research conducted on errors made by Kurdish speakers revealed the importance of errors in gaining knowledge on the mental lexicon and the way the Kurdish language is stored in the brain of its speakers in terms of sounds and of words. This mental knowledge on language prevents the occurrence of unacceptable combination of phonemes when error in phoneme is made and more than that a phoneme undergoes edition to be in concord with the phonological rules of the Kurdish language . When the error is in word, the words that are involved in the error are related in one way or another; semantically or grammatically and this proves the semantic and grammatical arrangements of words in the mental lexicon of the Kurdish speaker . The research also revealed that error in consonants occurs more than error in vowels. The errors in phonemes ( including consonants and vowels) that are of high frequency are anticipation, perseveration and substitution, while in words the error that takes place is often of substitution type. Finally, it is also noticed that these errors take place orderly by which the error in a consonant involves another consonant and the error in a vowel involves another vowel and exchange error is onset for onset and coda for coda. Works Cited: