Rio Akasaka Ling 50 Syntax

Turkish Phrase Structure 2 A. Some more tenses Before analyzing these sentences it would be necessary to highlight some of the roundedness and front/back features that are present in Turkish vowels. Turkish vowels have the following sounds: high low roundedness front/backness u o rounded back ι a unrounded back ü ö rounded front i e unrounded front

We noted in class the following rule: Vowel harmony rule Yes/No question The high vowel in the mH particle added to the end of sentence to form a Yes/No question formation in Turkish always agrees with the roundedness of the vowel that immediately precedes it. With the first section of the data set we note that the suffix appended to the verb is either –dü, -di, -dι, -du; as with the questions, we note that the general form is dH, where the H indicates a high vowel. Suffix –dü Problem set 7, Present progressive tense

Problem set 9 Past tense

Future tense

gülüyor (39) … maymun güldü gülecek düsüyor (40) … muz düstü (devoiced) düsecek ölüyor (41) … domuz öldü ölecek (42) … agaç düstü (devoiced) görüyor (47) … domuzu gördü (see) görecek (53) … maymuna güldü girecek (60) … agaçtan düstü (devoiced) Observation 1 Past tense The rounded front vowel ü form of the dH-structure of verb tense suffix harmonizes with the rounded front vowel that immediately precedes it (either ü or ö). There is also devoicing apparent in the instance of ‘düstü’, though the cause of it cannot as yet be determined. One hypothesis is the voiced consonant d in the beginning of the verb, or the unvoiced s that precedes the vowel.

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Rio Akasaka Ling 50 Syntax

Suffix –di Problem set 7, Present progressive tense

Problem set 9 Past tense

Future tense

geliyor (43) … kιz geldi (come) gelecek istiyor (44) … muzu istedi (want) isteyecek (45) … maymunu istedi söylüyor (55) … şarkiyi söyledi (sing) söyleyecek giriyor (57) … odaya girdi (enter) benziyor (61) … maymuna benzedi (resemble) benzeyecek Observation 2 Past tense The unrounded front vowel i form of the verb tense suffix is due to the unrounded front vowel that immediately precedes it (either e or i). There is no instance of devoicing here. Suffix –dι oynuyor (46) … ile oynadι (play) oynayacak cιkιyor (49) … arabadan çιktι (climb out) (devoiced) çikacak davranιyor (51) … gibi davrandι (behave) davranacak bakιyor (52) … muza baktι (look) (devoiced) bakacak (54) … agaça çιktι (climb) (devoiced) kalιyor (59) … masada kaldι (remain) kalacak Observation 3 Past tense The unrounded back vowel ι form of the verb tense suffix is caused by the unrounded back vowel that immediately precedes it (either a or ι). The devoicing here is most likely due to k, another unvoiced consonant, since analysis of the first consonant of the verb ç, b does not provide any clear relationship. (If b were to cause devoicing, we would have seen a devoicing in the previous section with ‘benzedi’.) Suffix -du korkuyor (48) … arabadan korktu (be afraid)

(devoiced) korkacak

konuşuyor (50) … ile konuştu (talk) (devoiced) konuşacak oturuyor (56) … masada oturdu (sit) oturacak (58) … arabada oturdu Observation 4 Past tense The rounded back vowel u form of the verb tense suffix is caused by the rounded back vowel that immediately precedes it (either u or o). We note devoicing occurring when the consonant immediately preceding the dH-construction is devoiced (k, and ş) We can formulate our results by suggesting the following vowel harmony rule.

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Rio Akasaka Ling 50 Syntax

Vowel harmony rule Past tense In the past tense, the high vowel in the -dH suffix agrees in roundedness and backness with the vowel immediately preceding it. Furthermore, the consonant d is devoiced whenever the previous consonant is unvoiced. There is, however, something unique about the first column set, in which the present progressive tense of the verbs, studied in a previous homework set, are listed. Though we observe that the suffixes take the form: -uyor -iyor -ιyor -üyor and that there is indeed vowel harmony taking place with the first vowel, we do not see any vowel harmony occurring the with second vowel, ‘o’. Apparently this is an exception, in that it is a nonharmonic suffix1. Vowel harmony rule Present progressive The high vowel in the -Hyor suffix of the present progressive tense agrees in roundedness and backness with that of the previous vowel. Future Tense We notice that the suffixes of the future forms of all the verbs, listed in the third column above, follow the general form of –ecek or –acak, and we suppose that the alternation is again due to vowel harmony.

The vowel that immediately precedes the suffix –ecek is ü (gülecek), ö (ölecek), i (girecek), e (gelecek) These are all front vowels, which agrees with the first vowel in the suffix. The vowel that immediately precedes the suffix –acak is a (oynayacak), o (korkacak), u (konuşacak) These are all back vowels, which also agrees with the first vowel.

Since both e and a are unrounded low vowels, we can simplify our rules. At this point however, it would be helpful to develop some rule for vowel assimilation: Vowel harmony rule Future tense In the future tense, the suffixes –ecek or –acak must agree with the front/back feature of the vowel that immediately precedes it, but not necessarily roundedness. We note that both e and a are low vowels, suggesting a hierarchical harmony rule, which is highlighted in the next rule.

1 ‘The Verb in Turkish’ http://www.turkishlanguage.co.uk/fiilkipi.htm

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Rio Akasaka Ling 50 Syntax

Vowel harmony general rule A vowel always agrees with the front/back feature of the vowel that precedes it. A high vowel always agrees with the roundedness of the vowel that immediately precedes it, in addition to the front/back feature. We also see a sort of y-insertion occurring in the future tense. It is slightly hard to note given the present progressive tense form of –yor, but there is certainly some verbs that, when converted to the future tense, have a y that cannot be properly accounted for: y-insertion no y-insertion istedi → isteyecek güldü → gülecek benzedi → benzeyecek korktu → korkacak oynadι → oynayacak baktι → bakacak söyledi→ söyleyecek! çιktι → çikacak! Since -ecek/acak is clearly a suffix, it must have been appended to some root form of the verb. Looking retroactively to the forms in which the y was supposedly appended, and removing the suffix that has been added in the past tense, we note the following base forms of the verb: verb roots before y-insertion iste/benze/oyna/söyle verb roots without y-insertion gül/kork/bak/çιk We immediately can see that y-insertion takes place when the verb root has a vowel at the end. y-insertion rule In the future tense, the buffer letter y is inserted before the suffix when the verb root ends in a vowel Further discussion about the ordering of the y-insertion, as well as an improved rule, is discussed later.

→Q B. Past Tense At first glance it seems apparent that the past tense suffix is –idi, but the additional data set involving negations does not contain any form of i. Though that may be resolved by a rule that removes the stem i, it seems more likely instead that the stem is added whenever the predicate that precedes it ends in a vowel. We verify this claim in the table that follows:

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Rio Akasaka Ling 50 Syntax

Problem set 7 Present tense

Problem set 9 Past tense 1

Problem set 9 Past tense 2

maymun mutlu ‘The monkey is happy’

(62) maymun mutluydu ‘The monkey was happy’

(62’) maymun mutlu idi ‘The monkey was happy’

muz masada ‘The banana is on the table’

(63) muz masadaydι ‘The banana was on the table’

(63’) muz masada idi ‘The banana was on the table’

maymun için (64) maymun içindi (64’) maymun için idi buz gibi (65) buz gibiydi (65’) buz gibi idi bir hayvan (66) bir hayvandι (66’) bir hayvan idi bir kιz (67) bir kιzidι (67’) bir kιz idi We note once again that the last vowel of the suffix (which is always high) changes according to the vowel that precedes it, and agrees in both roundedness and front/backness, as we presumed:

mutludi → mutluydu (both rounded back vowels) masadadi → masadaydι (unrounded back vowels) gibidi→ gibiydi (unrounded front vowels)

Instead of suggesting that

–idi → di after in –idi → andi after an

which would be the case if -idi were the suffix, we can resolve this issue by suggesting instead that the suffix is –di, and i- or y- is added, then assimilated, whenever the predicate preceding it ends in a vowel.

gibi+i+di→ gibiydi için+i+di → icindi hayvan+di → hayvandi kιz+i+di → (not kιzydι) kιzidι

At this point we can suggest the following: -dH suffix duality rule In general, the past tense -dH suffix can be either appended to the end of a sentence or added as a separate word.

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Rio Akasaka Ling 50 Syntax

Observation 5 -dH suffixation occurs in the past tense, and can be appended to the main verb or added as a separate word. i) When the suffix is appended after a predicate ending in a vowel, the buffer letter y is added. We note the possibility of this occurring as well with the fricative z; a hypothesis is that the same would occur if the last letter is s. ii) When di is appended as a separate word, the stem i- is added, the form remains invariant. We note that, unlike the mH particle in Yes/No questions, which was also a separate word, the idi construction is not affected by vowel harmony. This may be due to the fact that the stem letter is added to the original –di suffix, so no assimilation is necessary. To better document the process of vowel harmony and buffer letter insertion, as well as the possibilities of rule ordering, we develop the following diagram: mutlu → mutludi → mutlydi → mutluydu suffixation y-insertion vowel harmony There is a slight difficulty with the above rule formatting, in that it seems highly likely that the y insertion is somehow related to the stem i- that is appended when the suffix is modified into a separate word. If this is the case, it could be suggested the vowel might interfere with our vowel harmony rules. The safest ordering would be as follows: mutlu → mutludi → mutludu → mutluydu suffixation vowel harmony y-insertion This suggests that vowel harmony takes place before the buffer letter insertion. Since idi seems to act as a separate word in the second case (apparently the difference between the two forms ‘is almost entirely a matter of style2’) we amend our Phrase structure rules to account for this, highlighting the particular circumstances in which they occur, as discussed in Observation 5:

2 Underhill, Turkish Grammar pp. 183

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Rio Akasaka Ling 50 Syntax

Amended phrase structure rules

S →

⎪⎪⎭

⎪⎪⎬

⎫

⎪⎪⎩

⎪⎪⎨

⎧

⎟⎟⎟

⎠

⎞

⎜⎜⎜

⎝

⎛(idi)

NPPPAP

VP

NP → ( )( )

Name

N (bir) AP

(AP) D

⎭⎬⎫

⎩⎨⎧

VP → (PP) (NP) V PP → (NP) P AP → (int) A

Q C. Negation ‘did not’ construction (39’) gülmedi (41’) ölmedi (44’) istemedi (46’) oynamadι (48’) korkmadι (50’) konuşmadι (51’) davranmadι (52’) bakmadι (55’) söylemedi (61’) benzemedi Though it can be suggested that the suffixes for the simple past negation are -medi and -madι depending on vowel harmony, we reconsider this on the grounds of three observations:

1) All of the negated phrases contain –ma- or –me-. 2) Only the simple past has the end phrase form of di, which reminds us of the suffixation that took place in section B. 3) The –ecek suffixation seen in the future negative ‘will not’ form reminds us of the future tense discussed earlier.

Hence it seems likely that the negative marker is either –ma- or –me-. One hypothesis is that there must be agreement in front/back feature of the vowel that immediately precedes it, just as in the future tense; we verify:

preceding vowel suffix front/back ü, ö, e -me+di front a, o, u -ma+dι back

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Rio Akasaka Ling 50 Syntax

Once again, vowel harmony is taking place, both in the –ma/me- and the –di/dι affix. ‘will not’ ‘will’ (39’’) gülmeyecek gülecek gül+me+y+ecek (41’’) ölmeyecek ölecek öl+me+y+ecek (44’’) istemeyecek isteyecek iste+me+y+ecek (46’’) oynamayacak oynayacak oyna+ma+y+acak (48’’) korkamayacak korkacak korka+ma+y+acak (50’’) konuşmayacak (51’’) davranmayacak (52’’) bakmayacak (55’’) söylemeyecek (61’’) benzemeyecek

To express the future tense in the negative, we note that the suffix -me/ma- (or more generally, -mU for Unrounded vowel) once again appears directly after what will be referred to as the ‘root’ of the verb. We can account for y-insertion in the future tense by suggesting that the suffix –me/ma always ends in a vowel, so if the suffix is added first, then y is automatically inserted as part of our rule. To explain why there is no y-insertion in the past or present negative, we note that the suffix -ecek begins with a vowel, unlike the other suffixes, -di or -yor. We can thus generalize our y-insertion rule to account for all tenses. y-insertion general rule Whenever two vowels follow each other, a buffer letter is inserted. In this data set, we only observe the occurrence of the buffer letter y. This also helps account for why y-insertion takes place. Our ordered rule is as follows:

The negative suffix is added to the root of the verb first, and then the tense suffix is added, with vowel harmony taking place consecutively in that order.

‘is not’ construction ‘is not’ ‘is’ decomposing the verb (39’’’) gülmüyor gülüyor gül+mü+yor (41’’’) ölmüyor ölüyor öl+mü+yor (44’’’) istemiyor istiyor iste+mi+yor (46’’’) oynamιyor oynuyor oyna+mι+yor (48’’’) korkmuyor korkuyor kork+mu+yor (50’’’) konuşmuyor (51’’’) davranmιyor (52’’’) bakmιyor (55’’’) söylemiyor (61’’’) benzemiyor

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Rio Akasaka Ling 50 Syntax

A particular point to note is the transformation from iste to isti- in the verb ‘istemiyor’. An online Turkish dictionary3 suggested that the infinitive form of the verb ‘to want’ is istemek, so it seems likely that the root form is iste. Since we noted the present progressive suffix –yor in the previous problem set, we assume that the structure of that suffix does not change. We do note however several more forms of the negative marker: mü, mi, mι, and mu. Rather than merge them together with the previous suffixes –me/ma, however, we observe the following: i) gülmeyecek ii) gülmedi ii) gülmüyor If the negative markers were all of the form mX (where X is a vowel), then we cannot account for the difference in –me- and -mü- forms because the tense suffixation takes place after the suffix is added, and we do not have a rule for harmonizing vowels with those that come after the vowel. Hence we suggest two different forms of negative markers:

mL (low vowel), used for past and future tenses mH (high vowel) used for present progressive tense.

Then, by our general vowel harmony rule, the low vowel will assimilate in front/backness only, and the high vowel will, on top of assimilating in front/backness, assimilate in rounded/unroundedness as well. The following documents the forming of the verb:

‘gülmeyecek’ gül → gülmL → gülme → gülmeecek → gülmeyecek negative suffix vowel harmony tense suffix y-insertion ‘gülmedi’ gül → gülmL → gülme → gülmedi negative suffix vowel harmony tense suffix no y-insertion ‘gülmüyor’ gül → gülmH → gülmü → gülmüyor negative suffix vowel harmony tense suffix no y-insertion

3 http://www.turkishdictionary.net/

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Rio Akasaka Ling 50 Syntax

Q Phrase negation without copulas To express the negative copula ‘is not’, as in A is not B, we observe the following: Present tense Present tense negation maymun mutlu maymun mutlu değil muz masada muz masada değil maymun için maymun için değil buz gibi buz gibi değil bir hayvan bir hayvan değil bir kιz bir kιz değil Here, the negative particle değil is added to the end of the sentence in order to negate the sentence. We note that değil does not seem to be affected by vowel harmony rules. Past tense 1 Past tense 1 negation (62) maymun mutluydu maymun mutlu değildi (63) muz masadaydι muz masada değildi (64) maymun içindi maymun için değildi (65) buz gibiydi buz gibi değildi (66) bir hayvandι bir hayvan değildi (67) bir kιzidι bir kιz değildi Past tense 2 Past tense 2 negation (62’) maymun mutlu idi maymun mutlu değil idi (63’) muz masada idi muz masada değil idi (64’) maymun için idi maymun için değil idi (65’) buz gibi idi buz gibi değil idi (66’) bir hayvan idi bir hayvan değil idi (67’) bir kιz idi bir kιz değil idi Since it would not make sense to develop a contraction in the form of değil idi → değildi before the word ‘değil’ is added, we can safely argue that değil is first added to a sentence to negate it, after which tense is applied. This agrees with hypothesis in the previous section, in that the negative marker is always added first. We can then employ our past tense duality rule where the past tense suffix –dH can either be cast as a separate word (idi) or appended to the end of the last participle, which in the case is değil. Since the negative marker is added first, there will be no vowel harmonization as we saw in the earlier section: the i from idi harmonizes nicely with the i from değil.

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Rio Akasaka Ling 50 Syntax

Summary H and L signify high and low vowels, respectively. Verb formation: The following is the order in which suffixation, harmony, and y-insertion with verbs in Turkish are formed and appended: 1) negative suffix 2) vowel harmony 3) tense suffix 4) y-insertion Negation Past and Future tenses: -mL Present progressive: -mH Non-copular: değil Tense suffixes Present progressive: -Hyor Past tense: -dH

The consonant d is devoiced whenever the previous consonant is unvoiced. Future tense: –(y)LcLk y-insertion Whenever two vowels follow each other, a buffer letter is inserted. In this data set, we only observe the occurrence of the buffer letter y. Vowel harmony A vowel always agrees with the front/back feature of the vowel that precedes it. A high vowel always agrees with the roundedness of the vowel that immediately precedes it, in addition to the front/back feature D. Comparisons We note that unlike Indonesian, where the negation was placed after the first NP in a sentence, the negative suffix can be appended to the verb or added as a particle (‘değil’) to the end of a phrase:

S → NP (Neg)

VPAPNPPP

⎧

⎨ ⎪ ⎪

⎩ ⎪ ⎪

⎫

⎬ ⎪ ⎪

⎭ ⎪ ⎪

Indonesian sentence structure for negative markers

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Rio Akasaka Ling 50 Syntax

We also do not see multiple forms of negative makers to indicate whether or not a noun or a verb is negated, as we saw with the differences between:

bukan/nggak to negate a noun (the cat is not a sheep) tidak is used as a negation of verbs and everything other than nouns.4 jangan for prohibitions5 (jangan pergi don’t go!6)

For English, we know that the whenever the negative marker is used in a sentence with at least one auxiliary, the ‘not’ is placed immediately after the first auxiliary; not having dealt with modals in Turkish, however, this does not apply directly. We recall the rule formed for English negation for phrases without negation: In the absence of any auxiliaries (including the emphatic auxiliary do), the negative marker ‘not’ follows a form of ‘do’ that corresponds to the tense of the main verb; the combination occurs immediately before the main verb. The main verb is modified to its base form. Turkish is perhaps simpler in this respect, because there is no instance of do-insertion; though our translations do form do-support, Turkish manages this nicely with changing tense suffixes and a relatively static form of the negative marker (in that it does not change positions depending on what words the sentences does or does not contain). We do however stress that this data set is rather limited, since it does not deal with modal phrases, as well as forms of ungrammatical sentences.

4 Indonesian Language Scrapbook <http://www.languagetechnologies.com/ScrapBk.htm> Accessed February 10, 2007. 5 Soriente, Antonia. Patterns of negation in an Indonesian-Italian bilingual child http://email.eva.mpg.de/~gil/ismil/7/abstracts/soriente.html 6 Kroeger, Paul R. Analyzing Syntax. pp. 118.

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