Free Indirect Discourse in Neo-Aramaic Narrative Folktales

Free indirect discourse (Fm) is a literary, or narrative device which allows access to the thoughts and feelings of a protagonist, from his or her own perspective. FID is formally viewed as lying on the scale between indirect discourse (ID) and direct discourse (DD). It is non-embedded, consisting of a blend of features, few intrinsic to ID, while the rest are associated with DD. The paper aims to discuss the nature of the FID phenomenon in North Eastern Neo-Aramaic, based on folktales told in the Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Zakho, while paying close attention to the wider context, and more specifically, to the discourse type surrounding FID.