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Theoretical Studies on Turkic Languages
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Theoretical Studies on Turkic Languages

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 October 2022) | Viewed by 29881

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Jaklin Kornfilt

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, College of Arts and Sciences, Syracuse University, New York, NY, 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

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Published Papers (18 papers)

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Research

42 pages, 2061 KiB  
Article
Event Structure and Non-Culminating Readings in Turkic
by Sergei Tatevosov
Languages 2024, 9(12), 371; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9120371 - 4 Dec 2024
Viewed by 439
Abstract
Since the seminal work by David Dowty, much inspired by the earlier ideas of Generative Semantics, a number of proposals have been developed accounting for the internal constitution and interpretation of accomplishment event predicates like ‘open the door’ or ‘break the window’. Current [...] Read more.
Since the seminal work by David Dowty, much inspired by the earlier ideas of Generative Semantics, a number of proposals have been developed accounting for the internal constitution and interpretation of accomplishment event predicates like ‘open the door’ or ‘break the window’. Current theories of accomplishment event structure vary along a number of dimensions, including the subevental makeup of accomplishments and semantic relations connecting components of a complex eventuality description. The goal of this paper is twofold. First, I take into account evidence from non-culminating readings of accomplishment predicates in Turkic languages and argue that this evidence supports the following generalizations about the structure and interpretation of accomplishments: (i) the activity subevent is to be represented independently from the change of state; (ii) different accomplishment predicates constrain the relation between subevents in different ways; (iii) accomplishments differ as to the internal constitution of the activity subevent. Second, I will suggest that restrictions on non-culminating readings observed with different types of accomplishments support a specific view of how non-culminating accomplishments are derived. I will propose that at least in languages like Turkic, a necessary condition for non-culminating predicates is as follows: the activity component of a complex eventuality description has to have temporal parts that make no substantial contribution into bringing the culmination about. What I will say about Turkic does not presuppose that all non-culmination phenomena cross-linguistically warrant a uniform analysis. Even though the Turkic pattern shows strict semantic parallelism in other languages, it is not unlikely that there is more than one way in which non-culminating accomplishments can be derived. But whether a variety of other cases discussed in the literature reduce to the same pattern is a separate empirical question I am not trying to answer. The paper is organized as follows. In Section one, I introduce relevant material from three Turkic languages, Karachay–Balkar, Chuvash, and Tuba Altai, and observe that accomplishments in these languages fall into three types. Some yield the failed attempt interpretation, others the partial success interpretation, yet others do not license non-culminating readings at all. Section two argues for a decompositional analysis of the accomplishment event structure, whereby activity and change of state subevents are kept representationally distinct. Two types of relations between these components of the accomplishment structure are identified; the failed attempt and partial success readings are reduced to the properties of these relations. Section three approaches the problem of why non-culminating interpretations are available for some but not for all accomplishments. It reviews a recent theory suggesting that the (un)availability of non-culminating readings is accounted for by the unique temporal arrangement of contextually salient subevents of the activity component, either lexically or contextually entailed. The concluding subsection of Section three presents a number of problematic cases for this view. Section four outlines an alternative to the unique temporal arrangement. It argues that non-culminating accomplishments describe a proper non-final part e of the activity component of an event description such that the distance to the culmination between the initial and final bounds of e is insignificant in the current context. This approach makes more accurate predictions about the attested distribution of non-culminating interpretations and successfully avoids the complications associated with the unique temporal arrangement hypothesis. After making the notion of distance to the culmination more formally explicit, in the concluding section I address a few related issues concerning the eventuality type of non-culminating accomplishments and their interaction with aspectual operators. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Theoretical Studies on Turkic Languages)
17 pages, 771 KiB  
Article
Children’s Interpretation of Conditional Connectives
by Duygu Sarısoy, Semih C. Aktepe and Sena Gül
Languages 2024, 9(12), 365; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9120365 - 28 Nov 2024
Viewed by 531
Abstract
Previous studies have shown that the uni-conditional marker if can be interpreted biconditionally in some contexts. Similarly, the biconditional marker unless may receive a biconditional interpretation in positive quantificational contexts (e.g., every) and a uni-conditional reading in negative quantificational contexts (e.g., no). However, [...] Read more.
Previous studies have shown that the uni-conditional marker if can be interpreted biconditionally in some contexts. Similarly, the biconditional marker unless may receive a biconditional interpretation in positive quantificational contexts (e.g., every) and a uni-conditional reading in negative quantificational contexts (e.g., no). However, exceptive accounts expect unless to yield a biconditional meaning in all contexts. Our aim in this preliminary study is to provide experimental evidence about how children interpret these conditional connectives. A recent study conducted with adult Turkish speakers found that unless was not semantically biconditional in either positive quantificational contexts or negative quantificational contexts (Evcen et al. 2019). We used a similar paradigm with a child-friendly adaptation to test how if (-sA), if not (değilse), and unless (-mAdIkçA) would behave with 5-year-old children acquiring Turkish. Our preliminary results indicate that children, unlike adults, disregard the antecedent hosting the conditional connective but focus only on the consequent hosting the quantifier structure. We argue this may be related to the higher syntactic and semantic complexity in these structures incurring heavy working memory demands. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Theoretical Studies on Turkic Languages)
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18 pages, 623 KiB  
Article
Pluractional Motion Verbs in Turkish
by Greg Key and Eszter Ótott-Kovács
Languages 2024, 9(12), 358; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9120358 - 25 Nov 2024
Viewed by 315
Abstract
In this paper, we examine a small set of motion verbs in Turkish bearing the so-called ‘reciprocal’ suffix -(I)ş: kaç-ış- ‘flee in all directions’ (cf. kaç- ‘flee’), koş-uş- ‘run helter-skelter’ (cf. koş- ‘run’), uç-uş- ‘fly helter-skelter’ [...] Read more.
In this paper, we examine a small set of motion verbs in Turkish bearing the so-called ‘reciprocal’ suffix -(I)ş: kaç-ış- ‘flee in all directions’ (cf. kaç- ‘flee’), koş-uş- ‘run helter-skelter’ (cf. koş- ‘run’), uç-uş- ‘fly helter-skelter’ (cf. uç- ‘fly’). It has previously been claimed that these are collective or sociative verbs entailing a low elaboration of events and/or plural participants. We show that these -(I)ş-marked verbs, in fact, require a higher degree of individuation of events than do their unmarked counterparts. Furthermore, we show that a stipulation directly associating the suffix with a requirement for a plural subject is both unnecessary and inadequate. Instead, we propose that the pluractional under investigation manipulates the denoted events’ spatial and temporal properties in such a way that the predicate can only be felicitously used if it combines with a plural external argument. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Theoretical Studies on Turkic Languages)
33 pages, 696 KiB  
Article
Negative Dependencies in Turkish
by Beste Kamali and Hedde Zeijlstra
Languages 2024, 9(11), 342; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9110342 - 31 Oct 2024
Viewed by 970
Abstract
In this paper, we provide an overview of negative dependencies in Turkish. The first are elements such as hiçkimse, which sometimes seem to mean ‘anybody’ and sometimes ‘nobody’. We argue that unlike a standard Negative Polarity Item (NPI) like English anybody, [...] Read more.
In this paper, we provide an overview of negative dependencies in Turkish. The first are elements such as hiçkimse, which sometimes seem to mean ‘anybody’ and sometimes ‘nobody’. We argue that unlike a standard Negative Polarity Item (NPI) like English anybody, these items should be analyzed as neg-words licensed under Negative Concord (NC). We also discuss further properties of these items, including whether they are universals or existentials. The second set of items that display a negative dependency are universal quantifiers such as herkes ‘everybody’. Unlike their counterparts in many languages, these items obligatorily scope under negation, which raises the question of why a universal is sensitive to negation in the way it is. We account for this behavior in terms of negative polarity sensitivity based on a referentiality requirement we dub the Non-Entailment-of-Non-Existence Condition, following a particular analysis of a class of NPIs in Mandarin. The final case of negative dependency we evaluate is modals that have to scope under or above negation. These cases constitute instances of polarity sensitivity in English and beyond, especially clearly in the case of modal PPIs. We show that in Turkish, however, they do not, and the apparent negative dependency follows from the syntax of Tense-aspect-modality (TAM) morphology. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Theoretical Studies on Turkic Languages)
27 pages, 6103 KiB  
Article
Prosodic Rephrasing and Violations of the Phase Impenetrability Condition
by Güliz Güneş
Languages 2024, 9(5), 162; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9050162 - 1 May 2024
Viewed by 1214
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 [...] Read more.
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  
Article
Negation That Isn’t
by Martina Gračanin-Yüksek
Languages 2023, 8(4), 250; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8040250 - 24 Oct 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1487
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 [...] Read more.
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  
Article
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
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1374
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 [...] Read more.
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  
Article
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 1865
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.
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 Turkic, offers explicit diagnostics for suffixes and clitics, and proposes a morpho-syntactic analysis for each strategy. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Theoretical Studies on Turkic Languages)
32 pages, 654 KiB  
Article
Factivity-Alternating Attitude Verbs in Azeri
by Tatiana Bondarenko
Languages 2023, 8(3), 184; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8030184 - 1 Aug 2023
Viewed by 1536
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 [...] Read more.
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  
Article
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 1731
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’) [...] Read more.
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  
Article
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 1226
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 [...] Read more.
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  
Article
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 1612
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. [...] Read more.
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 (vRECP) and a pluractional head (vRL). The symmetric reciprocal head vRECP 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 vRECP and the pluractional head vRL 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  
Article
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 2078
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 [...] Read more.
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  
Article
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 - 7 Feb 2023
Viewed by 1861
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 [...] Read more.
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  
Article
Person Agreement with Anaphors: Evidence from Tatar
by Ekaterina Lyutikova
Languages 2023, 8(1), 46; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8010046 - 2 Feb 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2150
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 [...] Read more.
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  
Article
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 2279
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 [...] Read more.
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  
Article
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 2408
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 [...] Read more.
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  
Article
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 2164
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 [...] Read more.
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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