Birsel Karakoç, Uldanay Jumabay

Turkic Languages, Jahrgang 27 (2023), Ausgabe 2, Seite 162 - 185

The paper investigates the semantics of postverbial constructions marking transformativity in Kazakh. Postverbial constructions consist of a lexical verb with the converb marker in {-(Ị)p} or {-A//-y} and an auxiliary verb. These constructions function as actionality markers, recategorizing the inherent phase structures of their lexical verbs. The transformativizing constructions highlight the initial or the final phase of an action, such as otïr-ïp̣ bol- ‛to sit down’ ← otïr- ‛to sit down and to sit’, žaz-ïp̣ bol- ‛to write down’ ← žaz- ‛to write’. Besides phase specification, they can convey various semantic values, such as that the action is performed consciously or unconsciously, easily or with effort and difficulty, expectedly or unexpectedly, intentionally or unintentionally, coercively or instinctively, slowly or swiftly, and the like. The transformativizers have not previously been studied from a comparative perspective, and thus we do not know much about the correlations between their semantic values. The overarching question concerns the ways in which the postverbial constructions differ from each other semantically. The analysis is developed in multiple stages, and suggests thirteen semantic ideas that are expressed by the transformativizers found in our data. Each semantic idea appears with two contrary semantic values, value [a] or value [b]. The results suggest among other things a strong correlation between the type of the converb suffix, {-(Ị)p} or {-A//-y}, and the semantic values, [a] or [b], of a given semantic idea.

Keywords: Kazakh, postverbial construction, actionality, transformativization

Birsel Karakoç, Annette Herkenrath

Turkic Languages, Jahrgang 23 (2019), Ausgabe 1, Seite 81 - 121

This paper investigates the marking of indirect experience in a corpus of conversations recorded in Turkish-German bilingual families. Based on children’s retellings of family stories, which necessitate a grammatical distinction between personally experienced and narratively transmitted events, the paper combines a quantitative with a discourse-analytical approach. The quantitative analysis shows that the bilingual children use indirective markers considerably less than their monolingual peers. We present three case studies, analysing input, discourse establishment, speaker-hearer interaction, comprehension, and production of forms. These analyses show how, in talking about events that occurred a generation ago, the bilingual children use unmarked, neutral forms, creating situations of confusion for their adult interlocutors, with ensuing reactions. We argue that at the formal, grammatical, level, all three children seem to follow their own system, unaffected by the adults’ formal ways, their hints and recastings.

Birsel Karakoç

Turkic Languages, Jahrgang 21 (2017), Ausgabe 2, Seite 199 - 233

In the present paper I investigate subordination of existence and possessive clauses in contemporary Oghuz (Southwest) and Kipchak (Northwest) Turkic languages from comparative and typological points of view. One of the typological features of Turkic languages is that existence and possessive clauses are based on the same predicates. The characteristics and crosslinguistic distribution of two predicate types used in complementation and relativization of these clauses will be analyzed; these are the nonverbal predicate {BAR} and the verbal predicate {BOL}. The following results have been found. Kipchak Turkic languages, as well as Turkmen, an East Oghuz language spoken in Central Asia, use both {BAR} and {BOL} (in their bare forms or in various extended forms). The respective clauses in these languages are accordingly characterized by a formal diversity which to a certain extent ensures that distinct semantic notions are encoded by distinct formal devices. While {BAR} is also attested in some Turkish dialects, Standard Turkish (West Oghuz) makes exclusive use of {BOL}, a verb that allows ambiguities by being able to appear in quite a number of meanings and functions. In Turkic varieties that, as a result of intensive contact with Iranian or Slavic languages, exhibit right-branching and finite subordinate clauses, {BAR} appears as a typical predicate.

Annette Herkenrath, Birsel Karakoç

Turkic Languages, Jahrgang 21 (2017), Ausgabe 1, Seite 46 - 78

This paper investigates morphosyntactic, semantic and functional qualities of the complex verbal forms -mIşlIK and -mAzlIK in modern literary Turkish. It discusses their potential to serve as subordinators and explores the transitional zone between abstract nominalisation and “clausiness”, by using corpus-linguistic methodology. The results show that while these rarely used forms do have the capacity to expand into clause-like structures, they also reveal some categorially contradictory patterns. Morphosyntactically, the study attempts to rank the findings on a scale. It also looks at patterns of combinability of clausal with nominal categories. Semantically, the data reveal a tendency for these constructions to be employed in the expression of (passive) negative states and to occur with matrix predicates that express emotional experience, nonverbal communication or actions and existing states, rather than explicit verbal or cognitive processing or evaluation.

Birsel Karakoç

Turkic Languages, Jahrgang 19 (2016), Ausgabe 1, Seite 85 - 101

The present paper surveys predicational and sentential positions of the interrogative particles (Q-clitics) in various modern Turkic languages. In nominal predicates, the following patterns have been found: (1) the medial position, where the Q-clitic precedes the enclitic person-number markers or copular markers; (2) the final position, where the Q-clitic follows the person-number markers or copular markers. Regarding sentential positions, the patterns that have been found are as follows: (1) the interrogative clitic can freely move around the sentence, and attach to the focused constituent; (2) the clitic has a fixed position after the predicate. In each case, the second pattern appears to be typical in Central Asian Turkic languages. lt will be shown that in such languages, rather than being marked by the Q-clitic, the focused constituent is just brought to pre-predicative position with accompanying suprasegmental features. A further pattern found in interrogative clauses is characterized by absence of a morphosyntactic element. Interrogation realized without a Q-clitic and just by distinctive interrogative intonation is a contact-induced phenomenon in Turkic.