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Theoretical Studies on Turkic Languages

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A special issue of Languages (ISSN 2226-471X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 October 2022) | Viewed by 19818

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Prof. Dr. Jaklin Kornfilt

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Department of Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244, USA
Interests: syntactic theory; typology; Turkish and the Turkic languages

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This special issue includes studies on Turkish and some other Turkic languages, e.g. Azeri, Balkar, Tatar, and Uyghur. The issue reflects the state of the art in Turkic linguistics, with a focus on Turkish, and a cross-Turkic interest in interface studies, in particular on studies of the interfaces between and among syntax, morphology, prosody and, as a novel area of research within Turkic linguistics, of semantics and its interfaces with syntax and prosody. Studies on language contact (especially of the Turkic languages of the Balkans), first language acquisition, and processing are included, as well.

With their transparent morphology and head-final structure of words as well as sentences, the Turkic languages have attracted formal syntactic studies with a focus on the syntax – morphology interface, attempting to account for this parallelism. Likewise, the expression of information-structural notions such as focus is reflected both in the syntax (especially in the word order) of the Turkish languages as well as in the prosody. The nominalized nature of the most general type of embedded clauses has been addressed in seminal work by Lees (e.g. Lees 1965, Kornfilt & Whitman 2011), as have issues of case marking and its relevance for word order, prosody, and semantic scope, but without clear and final results. This special issue aims at a cross-Turkic perspective of such questions of interfaces; the studies included in this collection address issues of nominal syntax, binding of anaphors as well as the interaction of anaphors with overt agreement, the semantics of factivity, eventivity and telicity, the interaction of argument positions and prosody, the status of clitics versus suffixes, the scope of negation as well as different types of negation, the parallels between universal quantification and prosody, as well as prosody domains that violate syntactic constraints such as the PIC. Issues of language contact and the resulting changes in basic syntactic properties of the Turkic languages have been mentioned in typological literature in the past (see, for example, entries on individual Turkic languages in Johanson & Csató 1998), but no formal account or even formal, in-depth description has been given; this special issue includes such a study for the Turkic languages of the Balkans. The influence of overt case morphology on the way noun phrases and their syntactic properties are acquired by children is an area of inquiry which might have been broached in the past (see, for example, Kornfilt 1994), but only superficially. This special issue includes a study of this area, based on original and novel field work.

There is currently no single book or journal issue in the literature that consists of a set of theoretical, formal studies on different Turkic languages. There is a volume, entitled Turkic Languages (Johanson & Csató 1998), which includes structural and/or philological studies of those languages, but none of the articles included in that volume is theoretical or formal, nor in-depth. There is a special issue of the journal Lingua which does have theoretical articles, but those are limited to Turkish, and include only information-structural studies on focus and topic in Turkish (Göksel & Özsoy 2003). There also are a few theoretical articles on a number of Turkic languages (e.g. Turkish, Sakha) in a number of journals (e.g. NLLT, Glossa, Lingua, Linguistic Inquiry), but these are single studies on narrow issues. Thus, this special issue of Languages is unique in its nature as a cross-Turkic collection of theoretical and formal studies and will fill a gap in the theoretical literature on Turkic, while obviously being related to previous theoretical studies on the Turkic languages.

Note: This Special Issue includes only commissioned content. Please do not submit unsolicited manuscripts.

References:

Johanson, Lars & Éva Á. Csató. 1998. The Turkic Languages. London and New York: Routledge.

Özsoy, A. Sumru & Aslı Göksel. 2003. Lingua. Special issue on: Focus in Turkish. Volume 113, issue 11.

Kornfilt, Jaklin. 1994. Some reamrks on the interaction of case and word order in Turkish: Implications for acquisition. In B. Lust, M. Suñer & J. Whitman (eds.), Syntactic Theory and First Language Acquisition: Cross Linguistic Perspectives, vol. 1, 171-199. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Kornfilt, Jaklin & John Whitman. 2011. Afterword: Nominalizations in linguistic theory. Lingua 121(7). 1297–1313.

Lees, Robert B. 1965. “Turkish nominalizations and a problem of ellipsis.” Foundations of Language 1(2), 112-121.

Prof. Dr. Jaklin Kornfilt
Guest Editor

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Keywords

turkic languages
syntax
morphology
syntax-phonology interface
syntax-semantics interface

Published Papers (14 papers)

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Research

27 pages, 6102 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Prosodic Rephrasing and Violations of the Phase Impenetrability Condition

by Güliz Güneş

Languages 2024, 9(5), 162; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9050162 - 01 May 2024

Viewed by 367

Abstract

According to the Phase Impenetrability Condition (PIC), phasal domains are opaque to further syntactic operations. Some researchers claim that the PIC applies in the phonological component of grammar (i.e., at PF). Others, however, claim that there is no PIC at PF. I use data from Turkish to provide new arguments against the PIC-at-PF view and conclude that the PIC can only possibly hold in syntax. I show that the PIC-at-PF view is too restrictive, as it makes incorrect predictions about variable prosodic domain formation and optional prosodic variation in Turkish. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Theoretical Studies on Turkic Languages)

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26 pages, 2175 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Negation That Isn’t

by Martina Gračanin-Yüksek

Languages 2023, 8(4), 250; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8040250 - 24 Oct 2023

Viewed by 1100

Abstract

In this paper I investigate the ne…ne construction in Turkish, illustrated by Ne Ali ne (de) Esra geldi ‘Neither Ali nor Esra arrived’. The meaning of the ne…ne construction roughly corresponds to the meaning of the neither…nor construction in English, but the syntactic properties of ne…ne are somewhat different from those of neither…nor. I focus on two such differences: one, the fact that ne…ne can, although it doesn’t have to, be accompanied by a negated verb; in fact, a negated verb is slightly dispreferred by speakers (but the presence versus the absence of negation interacts in interesting ways with negative concord); and two, the fact that the ne…ne construction cannot be embedded under a wide-scope question particle –mI except when the verb is negated. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Theoretical Studies on Turkic Languages)

16 pages, 561 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Are Turkish Non-Case-Marked Objects with and without bir Interpreted and Acquired Differently?

by F. Nihan Ketrez

Languages 2023, 8(4), 229; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8040229 - 25 Sep 2023

Viewed by 955

Abstract

Whether non-case-marked objects with and without the numeral bir in Turkish have the same structural properties or not has been a topic of discussion for decades. This study aims to contribute to this discussion with experimental data that compares the comprehension of these object types along with their accusative-marked indefinite counterparts in terms of their scope with respect to negation by four-, five-, and six-year-old children as well as adults. The results suggest that both non-case-marked objects with and without bir contrast with accusative-marked indefinite objects and have a narrow scope with respect to negation in adults’ speech. However, bir can still have a main effect on the interpretation of the objects, just like the accusative case, and unlike non-case-marked objects without bir, objects with bir may scope over negation. Children treat all object types alike at age four and distinguish objects with and without bir at age five. These findings are compatible with an account that assumes different structures for two types of non-case-marked objects. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Theoretical Studies on Turkic Languages)

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38 pages, 562 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Disentangling Words, Clitics, and Suffixes in Uyghur

by Travis Major, Connor Mayer and Gülnar Eziz

Languages 2023, 8(3), 203; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8030203 - 30 Aug 2023

Viewed by 1306

Abstract

Turkic languages have been shown to form words using a wide range of word-formation strategies, such as suffixation, cliticization, and auxiliaries. The present paper offers a detailed description of word formation in Uyghur, compares the patterns in Uyghur with the prior literature on [...] Read more.

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Theoretical Studies on Turkic Languages)

32 pages, 654 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Factivity-Alternating Attitude Verbs in Azeri

by Tatiana Bondarenko

Languages 2023, 8(3), 184; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8030184 - 01 Aug 2023

Viewed by 1056

Abstract

Factivity alternations received at least two kinds of explanations in the literature: there are approaches that attribute the two readings to two different LFs and approaches that derive the presence/absence of a factive inference by appealing to general pragmatic mechanisms. In this paper I investigate verbs displaying two different kinds of factivity alternations in Azeri and argue for the former view of how factivity alternations emerge. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Theoretical Studies on Turkic Languages)

43 pages, 786 KiB

Open AccessArticle

On Actuality Entailments, Causation, and Telicity in Balkar

by Dmitry Privoznov

Languages 2023, 8(3), 178; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8030178 - 24 Jul 2023

Viewed by 1281

Abstract

This paper presents a study of actuality entailments in Balkar (a dialect of Karachay-Balkar, Turkic). The study focuses on the deontic and causal meanings of four morphemes: two suffixes (the causative suffix and the suffix -al (‘can/may’)) and two verbs (bujur (‘order’) and qoj (‘allow’)). In the first half of the paper, I provide empirical support for three generalizations: (a) only causal modals can have actuality entailments (all universal and some existential causal modals); (b) actuality entailments arise whenever a causal modal has a telic interpretation, more precisely, when it is not embedded under an imperfective or a delimitative operator (c) existential but not universal causal modals trigger an anti-actuality entailment under negation. In the second half of the paper, I propose a theory of root modality within the framework of situation semantics. In this framework, root modals describe a situation (the anchor situation) and quantify over situations that stand in a particular semantic relation to it. The proposed Causal Modality Theory (CMT) consists of two assumptions: (a) Causal modals quantify over causal chains initiated by the counterparts of the anchor situation. (b) Some existential causal modals have a conditional presupposition: if any counterpart of the anchor situation caused another situation, then the anchor situation itself caused the same situation. The first assumption explains why all universal causal modals have actuality entailments and why existential causal modals trigger an anti-actuality entailment under negation. The second assumption predicts that some existential causal modals (the ones with the conditional presupposition) also trigger an actuality entailment. CMT treats causal modals as bi-eventive predicates, like (non-culminating) accomplishments. They describe two situations: the anchor situation and a situation caused by it. As a result, causal modals are predicted to behave like (non-culminating) accomplishments, namely, they are predicted to trigger actuality entailments if and only if they are not embedded under an imperfective or a delimitative operator. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Theoretical Studies on Turkic Languages)

21 pages, 482 KiB

Open AccessArticle

On the Prosodic Exponence of Universal Quantification in Turkish Relative Clauses

by Deniz Özyıldız and Ömer Demirok

Languages 2023, 8(3), 170; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8030170 - 17 Jul 2023

Viewed by 864

Abstract

We identify a tonal contour in Turkish that expresses universal quantification. We show that the distribution of this contour is restricted to noun phrases modified by relative clauses and that it expresses universal quantification over situations rather than over individuals. We describe the prosodic structure of the contour, unexpected from the perspective of the phonology of Turkish intonation, and identify it as a tonal morpheme. We define it, and provide a compositional analysis of the sentences that contain it. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Theoretical Studies on Turkic Languages)

39 pages, 640 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Reciprocals in Turkish

by Ümit Atlamaz and Balkız Öztürk

Languages 2023, 8(3), 158; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8030158 - 28 Jun 2023

Viewed by 1039

Abstract

This paper discusses various reciprocalization strategies in Turkish, including lexical, pronominal, and verbal reciprocals, as well as the collective and discontinuous constructions that appear with symmetric predicates. We propose that there are two distinct sources of reciprocity in Turkish: symmetry and distributivity–reciprocity. Lexical and verbal reciprocals are established via symmetry, whereas pronominal reciprocals are formed via distributor–reciprocator operators introduced by the reciprocal pronoun birbiri ‘each other’. We argue that the verbal reciprocal morpheme -(I)ş is ambiguous between a symmetric reciprocal head (

v_{RECP}

) and a pluractional head (

v_{RL}

). The symmetric reciprocal head

v_{RECP}

turns an asymmetric transitive predicate into a symmetric transitive predicate by creating two event variables as subevents of a single eventuality and permutes the thematic roles across the arguments of the predicate. Our proposal builds on the idea that symmetric predicates introduce plural events consisting of atomic subevents as their parts. This double-sourced analysis allows us to account for a range of facts involving collective and discontinuous constructions. We argue that both discontinuous and collective constructions are transitive and that collective constructions are formed through a combination of the two reciprocal sources (symmetry and distributivity–reciprocity) with an unpronounced reciprocal pronoun. We also provide an account of the reciprocal–pluractional syncretism of the -(I)ş suffix, arguing that the symmetric reciprocal head

v_{RECP}

and the pluractional head

v_{RL}

share a common [pl] feature spelled out as -(I)ş. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Theoretical Studies on Turkic Languages)

19 pages, 446 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Are There Aspectless Tensed Clauses in Turkish?

by Ömer Demirok and Yağmur Sağ

Languages 2023, 8(1), 60; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8010060 - 21 Feb 2023

Viewed by 1562

Abstract

Turkish allows finite verb forms that carry tense marking but no overt aspect marking. Unlike those that contain both tense and aspect marking, aspectless forms also lack an auxiliary copula. This is a key difference that Kelepir takes as evidence that aspectless forms derive from clausal structures that lack an aspect projection. However, syntax-morphology mapping is not always isomorphic. Therefore, we also evaluate this proposal from a semantic point of view, raising both empirical and theoretical questions: (1) Is there any aspectual inference associated with morphologically aspectless verbs? (2) Are structures where tense directly combines with a VP compositionally interpretable? While Kelepir’s proposal seems to face challenges in both directions, we argue that the semantic considerations are, in fact, consistent with the clausal structure Kelepir argues for, with broader implications for clause structure and compositional interpretation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Theoretical Studies on Turkic Languages)

22 pages, 413 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Morphology of Case and Possession in Balkar: Evidence that Oblique Cases Contain Accusative

by Colin Davis

Languages 2023, 8(1), 50; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8010050 - 07 Feb 2023

Viewed by 1394

Abstract

This paper uses facts about case allomorphy and possessive morphology in Balkar, a Turkic language spoken in southern Russia, to contribute to the examination of the internal structure of case. A number of recent findings in morpho-syntactic research indicate that case markers have a richer internal structure than their surface appearance typically suggests. Specifically, many works in this vein argue based on cross-linguistic facts about phenomena such as suppletion and syncretism that case features are organized into an implicational containment hierarchy. In this hierarchy, accusative case contains the features of the nominative, and the accusative is itself a sub-part of oblique cases. Many arguments for case containment have relied on diagnostics that are less direct than surface-level morpho-syntactic analysis. In this paper, I argue that there is a part of Balkar grammar that shows the containment of accusative case by obliques in a surface-evident way. While such containment is not normally evident in Balkar, I argue that in certain possessed oblique NPs we see an overt expression of the accusative, except when phonological factors interfere. I go on to discuss other related topics about Balkar and the case containment hypothesis more generally. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Theoretical Studies on Turkic Languages)

46 pages, 1650 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Person Agreement with Anaphors: Evidence from Tatar

by Ekaterina Lyutikova

Languages 2023, 8(1), 46; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8010046 - 02 Feb 2023

Viewed by 1688

Abstract

In this paper, I present evidence for variable agreement with anaphors in Tatar. I show that inflected reflexives trigger co-varying person agreement as DP/nominalization subjects and as complements of postpositions, which appears to contradict the generalization on the anaphor agreement effect (AAE). At the same time, inflected reciprocals induce 3p agreement on external targets. These data are puzzling in two aspects. First, it is unclear how to derive co-varying agreement with inflected reflexives because it cannot be handled as a regular exception to AAE predicted to arise by the agreement-based theory if the antecedent of the anaphor is positioned lower than the agreement target. Secondly, the difference between reflexives and reciprocals with respect to external agreement looks enigmatic. I propose that Tatar reflexives and reciprocals, despite their superficial resemblance, have different internal structures, which in turn bring about differences in their feature sets, and external agreement reveals these differences. As to AAE violations, I propose that the Tatar data can be accounted for under the feature sharing approach whereby the features on the anaphor and on the external probe are first identified as instances of the same feature set and then valued by the anaphor’s binder. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Theoretical Studies on Turkic Languages)

22 pages, 466 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Processing Focus in Turkish

by Didem Kurt and Nazik Dinçtopal Deniz

Languages 2023, 8(1), 38; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8010038 - 29 Jan 2023

Viewed by 1598

Abstract

The immediately preverbal position has been argued to be the default focus position in Turkish. In absence of any overt focus markers, the constituent in this position is considered to carry sentential stress and neutral information for canonical word-order sentences and focus is projected to the whole sentence in the form of broad focus. In non-canonical word-order sentences, the immediately preverbal constituent is presumed to carry focal stress and the focused constituent would receive narrow focus. This paper tested this claim experimentally. The paper also investigated if there were any differences in the cognitive operations associated with processing and revising focus in canonical and non-canonical sentences. There were a sentence completion task and an eye-tracking experiment. The sentence completion data and the eye-tracking data supported the theoretical predictions: the immediately preverbal position was associated with default focus in Turkish when no pitch accentuation or other focus markers were available. The eye-tracking data further showed that changes to word-order were perceived as cues for broad versus narrow focus marking. The participants’ processing of and revision from narrow focus were costlier than processing broad focus and assigning narrow focus for the first time. We argue, in line with previous research, that this may be due to deeper encoding of focused information in memory or heavier memory load resulting from keeping a set of alternatives of the focused constituent when it has contrastive meaning. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Theoretical Studies on Turkic Languages)

20 pages, 1444 KiB

Open AccessArticle

On the Directionality of the Balkan Turkic Verb Phrase: Variationist and Theoretical Perspectives

by Cem Keskin

Languages 2023, 8(1), 2; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8010002 - 21 Dec 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1871

Abstract

Balkan varieties of Turkic, particularly those on the periphery of the Turkic spread area in the region, such as Gagauz and West Rumelian Turkish, are commonly observed to have head-initial verb phrases. Based on a wide survey, this paper attempts a more precise description of the pattern of VP directionality across Balkan Turkic and shows that there is considerable variation in how prevalent VX order is, a pattern that turns out to be more complex than the previous descriptions suggest: Two spectrums of directionality can be discerned between XV and VX orders, contingent upon type of the dependent of the verb and dialect locale. The paper also explores the grammatical causes underlying this shift in constituent order. First, VX order seems to be dependent upon whether a clause is nominal or not. Nonfinite clauses of the nominal type have XV order across Balkan Turkic, while finite clauses and nonfinite clauses of the converbial type show differing degrees of VX order depending on type of dependent and geographical location. Second, VX order appears to be an outcome of verb movement to the left of the dependent in finite clauses and nonfinite clauses of the converbial type, rather than head parameter shift. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Theoretical Studies on Turkic Languages)

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18 pages, 5268 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Labeling, Concord, and Nominal Syntax in Turkish

by İsa Kerem Bayırlı

Languages 2022, 7(4), 296; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7040296 - 22 Nov 2022

Viewed by 1703

Abstract

According to Chomsky’s Labeling Algorithm the merger of two phrases, i.e., {XP, YP}, is labeled either via feature sharing between the two elements or by ignoring the lower copies of movement chains. It is not immediately clear, within this approach, how adjunction structures such as {aP, nP} are to be labeled. In those languages where adjectives show concord with nouns in φ features, the shared features may provide the label.This option is not available for non-concord languages, however. In this paper, we focus on the labeling of {aP, nP} in Turkish, a non-concord language. We claim that the categorizing n⁰ head in Turkish lacks grammatical features, as a result of which aP fails to find valued instances of its unvalued features. In the absence of feature sharing, aP is marked as a Spell-Out domain, and {aP, nP} is labeled as nP as soon as aP is sent to the interfaces. Since aP in Turkish is a Spell-Out domain, the left-branch extraction of adjectives (i.e., aP movement) is not possible. Moreover, the lack of any grammatical features on n⁰ in Turkish accounts for the availability of suspension of the plural morpheme. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Theoretical Studies on Turkic Languages)

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