Morphology of Turkish

Morphophonology

The behaviour of {y}

There is need for a {y} "archiphoneme" in the morphophonology. Lowercase {y} is appropriate, since by our guidelines, uppercase characters are used for letters which primarily change forms (and may occasionally delete), whereas lowercase characters are used for letters which primarily delete/appear (and may change form when they appear).

Examples of {y}

example	After a vowel	After a consonant
{y}l{A}	anneyle, babayla	gözle, saçla
{y}{A}	anneye, babaya	göze, saça
{y}{A}c{A}{K}	izleyecek, okuyacak	gelecek, olacak
{y}{A}b{I}l-	izleyebil-, okuyabıl-	gelebil-, olabıl-

{I} versus {i}

The archiphoneme {i} deletes after vowels, whereas {I} replaces the previous vowel (i.e., surfaces and triggers the deletion of the previous vowel). They both surface after consonants. They obey the same vowel harmony rules when they surface, having four possible forms: i (after i & e), ü (after ü & ö), ı (after a & ı), and u (after u & o).

Examples of {i} and {I}

archiphoneme	example	After a vowel	After a consonant
{i}	{i}p	büyüp, izlep, arap	verip, olup, bakıp
{I}	{I}yor	büyüyor, izliyor, arıyor	veriyor, oluyor, bakıyor

Devoicing

category	alternating		voiceless		voiced
voiced	before %>: :Vow		never		always
voiceless	syllable-finally		always		never
examples	kitap/kitabı yurt/yurdu güç/gücü köpek/köpeği	et/ediyor	çöp/çöpü at/atı iç/içi halk/halkı	yap/yapiyor bit/bitiyor iç/içiyor bak/bakiyor	leb/lebi ad/adı hac/hacı (dağ/dağı)
	nouns	verbs	nouns	verbs	nouns	verbs
p/b	kitap cevap	—	çöp	yap öp	leb	—
t/d	yurt	et git güt	devlet at	tut bit eğit at	ad	—
ç/c	güç ağaç amaç haç	—	iç suç	iç seç kaç uç geç biç aç ölç saç	hac kırbac	—
k/ğ	kulak köpek	—	halk mülk kök gök	bak yak yık	(dağ)	(yağ) (yığ) (doğ)

Aorist rules

• Verb stems ending with vowels: -r
• Polysyllabic verb stems ending with consonants: -Ir
• Most monosyllabic verb stems ending with consonants: -Ar
• The following 13 monosyllabic verb stems ending with consonants: -Ir
  • al-, bil-, bul-, dur-, gel-, gör-, kal-, ol-, öl-, san-, var-, ver-, vur-

Best solution:

• underlyingly -{i}r
• separate verb class for -Ar verbs, whereby {A} is added to verb stem before -{i}r

Note:

• applies to -{i}rken too

Words that break vowel harmony

• deal with via {e}
• examples: saat, dikkat, idrak, harp (harb-), harf, kalp (kalb-), terminal, meşgul

Epenthetic high vowel

• deal with via {y} (or something else, since {y} is already used, but Kazakh and Kyrgyz and Tatar use {y})
• examples: nehir/nehr-, ..?

Morphology

Non-finite verb forms

	verbal noun	verbal adjective	verbal adverb	participle
-m{I}ş	—	yes		yes -m{I}ş ol-
-m{A}{K}	yes (turns to -m{A} for suffixes, i.e., <px*> & case)	yes		yes -m{A}{K} iste-
-m{A}	yes	no (cf. yazma sınav)	—
-{y}{A}c{A}{K}	yes	yes w̄ <px*>!	—
-{D}{I}{K}	yes¹,²	yes w̄ <px*>!	—
-{y}{A}r{A}{K}			yes
-{i}p	—	—	yes	—
-({A})-{i}rken			yes
-{C}{I}		yes