Fachbereich Sprachwissenschaft Universität Konstanz Arbeitspapier 78 Turkish Relative Participles. A Reanalysis in Categorial Grammar. Klaus von Heusinger Oktober 1996

• Contents
• Introduction
• PDF-Datei (980K)

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Categorial Grammar and Linguistic Theory
2.1 Classical Categorial Grammar
2.2 Generalized Categorial Grammars
2.3 Morphology and Bracketing Paradoxes

3. Turkish as a Categorial Language

3.1 Nominals and Nominal Constructions
3.2 The Izafet-Construction
3.3 The Verbal Complex
3.4 Participles
3.5 Verbal Nouns

4. Turkish Relative Clauses

4.1 A Double Bracketing Paradox
4.2 The Bahibozuk or ‘Broken Head’ construction
4.3 Flat Reconstruction of Embedded Sentences

Bibliography

Introduction

Underhill (1972) analyzes the two types of relative construction in Turkish. One type is applied if the subject of the embedded clause is relativized, whereas the second construction covers all the other cases. In this paper, I try to give a transparent reanalysis of the suffix -digi which forms relative constructions of the second type. The relative clause in (2) is derived from the simple sentence in (1) by modifying the verbal stem bekle with the participle suffix -dig and the possessive suffix -i. The subject of the relative clause is realized by the genitive modifier kardehimin of the participle bekledigi:

(1) kardeh-im    misafir-i   bekli-yor
 brother-pos.1.sg  guest-acc expect-pres
 'My brother expects the guest.'

(2) kardeh-im-in     bekle-dig-i      misafir
 brother-pos.1.sg-gen  expect-part-pos.3.sg guest
 'the-waiting-of-my-brother-guest' = 'guest that my brother expects'

On one hand the participial suffix -dig forms a participle from a verbal stem, which modifies the head noun misafir. On the other hand the possessive suffix -i refers to the genitive kardeh-im-in, which is the subject of the relative clause. This causes a double bracketing paradox: The participial suffix -dig refers to the head noun misafir while the possessive suffix refers back to the genitive kardeh-im-in crossing the attributive participle: [1 kardeh-im-in bekle-[2 dig-i]1 misafir]2. These complex functional relations can only be explained if the morphology/syntax border is made more transparent than it is assumed in most theories about syntax. I argue with special reference to the relative suffix digi that a categorial analysis gives new insights into the syntax-morphology interface. It will be shown that Turkish relative clause constructions can be traced back to general syntactic and morphological rules of Turkish. This paper is organized as follows: In section 2, I give a short outline of categorial grammars in linguistic theory. The basic ideas are introduced by the example of the classical formalism due to Ajdukiewicz. Then, generalized categorial grammars are discussed, which are able to describe more complex phenomena, like bracketing paradoxa. In section 3, I sketch some essential constructions of Turkish which are crucial to the analysis of relative clause constructions: nominal constructions, genitive groups and participles. Turkish nouns can be used as substantives, attributes or predicates. The Turkish genitive group or definite izafet-construction is marked by an agreement feature between the modifying genitive and the head noun. Participial constructions and nominalizations play an important role in Turkish because they are the means to form subordinate clauses. The categorial description of these three grammatical constructions yields a transparent analysis of Turkish relative clauses and relative clause suffixes in section 4. It can be shown that the reanalysis of the function of the suffix -digi does not only solve the double bracketing paradox, but also provides a transparent composition of its lexicalized meaning. Finally, the analysis is applied to the construction that Lewis (1967) called 'bahibozuk' ('broken head') like oglan-in mekteb-in-e git-tigi adam 'The man, to whose school the boy goes'.

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