WORD-FORMATİON PROCESSES

Semantically, reduplicated words display a number of varying relationships. Some of them are composed of synonymous words: sorgu sual, kılık kıyafet, deli divane, ses seda; some are composed of near synonyms: delik deşik, ak pak, akıl fikir, ar namus; and some of antonymous words: ileri geri, er geç, iyi kötü, tatlı tatsız.

Though relatively less common, verbs are used to form new nouns: yapboz, yap-işlet-devret, çekyat, gelgit, so are clauses: dedikodu. Nouns yielding frozen forms which consist of nouns followed by verbs (NOUN+VERB) are also possible. They are called frozen forms because of the high restrictions on their combinability possibilities: imambayıldı, but not *imambayılır or *kadınbayıldı; külbastı, but not *külbasmaz or *tülbastı. They cannot be analyzed, neither can they be used systematically and productively with other parallel forms. Therefore, they are considered to be frozen forms.

Morphologically speaking, reduplicated forms may have a complex structure including inflectional or derivational suffixes as shown in bracketed examples: [Yalana dolana] baş vurdu, [eşe dosta] ayıp olur, [çoluk çocuğa] rezil olduk, [yandan yandan] yürüdü, [eli yüzü] düzgün, [uslu uslu] oturduk, [parasız pulsuz] kaldık,[sırıtıp sırıtıp] durma, [bilmiş bilmiş] konuşma, [düşe kalka] mezun olduk, [tanıdık bildik] yüzler and so on. Even clauses can be reduplicated as in [durdu durdu] turnayı gözünden vurdu, [sormuş sormuş] cevap alamamış, ava [gitse gitse] Osman gider, etc.

There are four possibilities of derivation (p: 81, Table 6.1.): • Denominal nominal stems include nouns formed from nouns • Deverbal nominal stems include nouns formed from verbs. • Denominal verbal stems include verbs formed from nouns • Deverbal verbal stems include verbs made from verbs.

Full reduplication is realized by copying the entire stem. This process applies to all word classes except conjunctions and post positions: [hızlı hızlı] yürüdü (adverb), [mavi mavi] boncuklar (adjective), [kapı kapı] dolaştı (noun), [sus sus] sıra sana gelsin (verb), [kim kim] gittiniz (pronoun), [Ah ah]! (interjection).

Partial reduplication is realized by repeating the leftmost syllable of the stem accompanied by the *ion of one of the consonants /p/, /m/, /s/, /r/. Some examples are: • ipince from ince • sımsıkı from sıkı • masmavi from mavi • tertemiz from temiz This formative process is applied to adjectives and adverbs in Turkish to create augmented meanings such as “increase in size” or “added intensity”. So, contrasted meanings after reduplication in the above examples are thin vs too thin, tight vs utterly tight, blue vs all blue, and clean vs utterly clean respectively. The reduplicated leftmost portion serves as the modifier of the affected stem.

Derivation is a morphological process which makes new words with new meanings by attaching derivational affixes to the stem as in sür-ü, sür-gü, sürgün, sür-me, sür-üm, etc. It is the most productive wordfromation process in Turkish.

Conversion allows a functional shift from one word class to another without any other addition or reduction in the word. Therefore, this process is also called zero derivation. Some examples including nouns/adjectives and verbs are: acı- (verb) vs acı (adj), ekşi- (verb) vs ekşi (adj), ağrı- (verb) vs ağrı (noun). Other examples of conversion including nouns used as adjectives are: pamuk, gümüş, kömür; aorist third person singular verbs as nouns: gelir, gider, okur, çıkar, tükenmez, çıkmaz.

Phonologically speaking, reduplication produces: • Mimetic words • Doublets with /m/

There are two types of reduplication: • Partial reduplication • Full reduplication

A special case of verbal compound is called noun incorporation which involves compounding of a noun stem or an adjective and a verb. In this process, the nominal element of the verb and the verb itself fuse to form a semantically more complex verb. For example, in balık tutmak and kitap okumak the incorpated nouns balık and kitap are considered to be a part of the verb. These nouns build up the meaning of the verbs tutmak and okumak: balık tutmak ‘fish catching’ as opposed to, say, el tutmak ‘hand holding’, and kitap okumak ‘book reading’ as opposed to, say, mektup okumak ‘letter reading’ or dergi okumak ‘magazine reading’. These indicate general activities, so the nouns are generic in reference. Other examples include gazete okumak, banyo yapmak, alay etmek, yemek yemek, pişman olmak.

Nominal compounds can also be formed by ADJECTIVE+NOUN combinations as in: karaağaç, palabıyık, atlıkarınca, ilkokul, kırkayak. Some neologisms of this type that have been added to the lexicon in the last ten years are doğalgaz, toplutaşıma, ortadirek, kesin dönüş, hayali ihracat, paralı askerlik, sırdaş hesap.

Sounds of the nature inspire creation of new words in all languages called onomatopoeic words. These words are imitative of natural sounds, so they reflect the meanings that they represent. Verbs, adjectives and adverbs can be created from the so called noises of the nature by several word formation processes such as affixation: hırıldamak, cıvıldamak, şırıldamak; compounding, çıt kırıldım, şıp sevdi; and reduplication: hırıl hırıl, şırıl şırıl, cıvıl, cıvıl.

Reduplication is a word-formation process which involves copying some part of the underlying stem to various extent.

A word-formation process is a morphological process which produces new words in a language.

Derivational affixes in Turkish are predominantly suffixes although a number of prefixes are possible in the words of foreign origin: bilakis, bitaraf, hemfikir, lamekan, nahoş, etc

The following is list of word-fromation processes commonly used in Turkish: • Derivation • Reduplication • Compounding • Onomatopoeia • Conversion • Borrowing • Coinage • Semantic Change • Metaphorical Extension • Clipping • Blending • Acronym • Backformation

There are three types of compounding: • Nominal compounding: makes nouns • Verbal compounding: makes verbs • Adjectival compounding: makes adjectives

Unlike partial reduplication, full reduplication does not exhibit a modifier modified relationship. The words that are paired are of equal status, and they both modify the following form, not each other. Augmentation in these examples emphasizes continuance or repetition in verbs, intensity in modifiers and interjections, and plurality in varying degrees of intensity in nouns and pronouns.

Phonologically speaking, reduplication in Turkish allows sound alternations to form rhyming pairs such as the following: • consonant alternation: s>f as in sıkı fıkı, k>s as in kaba saba, s>p as in sus pus • vowel alternation as in çar çur, hart hurt, zart zurt. These words are called mimetic words since they are created by imitating the stem. Some mimetic words have matching counterparts including what is called extenders. For example, fır fır, har har, zır zır can be extended into fırıl fırıl, harıl harıl, zırıl zırıl. The extended forms mark semantically more intensive meanings and this difference is achieved only by adding the extender -ıl. There are some infixing extenders as well: zıngır zıngır, güldür güldür which are claimed to be extended from zır zır and gür gür.

There are four types of sematic change: • Broadening • Narrowing • Reversals • Eponymy

Reduplication is of somewhat grammatical significance in Turkish. Manner adverbs are formed from adjectives by full reduplication. For example, hızlı in hızlı tren cannot be used as an adjective when duplicated: *hızlı hızlı tren. Yet it is perfectly acceptable when used with a verb as an adverb: hızlı hızlı yürüdü. There are also frequency adverbs formed in this way: zaman zaman, sık sık.

Compounding is a genuinely Turkish means of creating new lexical items. It is realized by compounding two free morphemes from different or same word classes to express a single meaning. It allows rich combinations of embedded compounds as shown below: • el [dokuma] • el dokuma [halı] • el dokuma halı [tezgah]ı • el dokuma halı tezgahı [atölye]si • el dokuma halı tezgahı atölyesi [yönetici]si The word class of the compound is always compatible with the word class of the right most member, as shown in brackets. Moreover, the meaning of the right most element is central to the meaning of the compound. Therefore, the direction of the modification is from the left to the right.

Some compounds are opaque in their meaning. Both components in these compounds may lose their individual meanings when combined into a single lexical item. For example, akbaba is not a kind of baba, nor hanımeli is a kind of el. In their new forms, they gain meanings distinct from those of their components’ to describe a kind of bird and a kind of plant respectively. These are called exocentric compounds.

Phonologically speaking, reduplication produces forms called doublets with /m/. Doublets with /m/ are forms in which: • /m/ is added initially to the words with initial vowels: arı marı, ev mev, ışık mışık, iş miş, on mon, ön mön, un mun, ün mün, etc. • replaces the initial consonants in words with initial consonants: sarı marı, kavun mavun, para mara, son mon, çiçek miçek, etc. The new meaning added by this way is either that of vagueness or of etcetera/and the like: • televizyon melevizyon ‘tevizyon and the like’ • dans et mans et ‘dance or do something similar’ • hızlı mızlı ‘hızlı or whatever’ • annemler mannemler ‘my parents and whoever else’

Reversals represent a process in which the meaning of a particular word may be reversed from positive to negative called semantic degradation, or from negative to positive called semantic elevation. For example, çocuk was once used to mean piglet, but its meaning is elevated from ‘non-human’ to ‘human’ to mean child (son) in colloquial Turkish. The word alçak in old Turkish meant modest, but in modern Turkish it has a more negative meaning: filthy.

Borrowing is a word formation process in which a word from one language is directly taken by another language. Historically, Turkish borrowed many words from other languages, such as Arabic, Persian and French. In addition, a flood of new borrowings in the last decade, especially from English, could not be avoided: French fries, fish and chips, cheesecake, hamburger, fast food, piercing, tattoo, etc. These are examples of borrowings that are kept intact. However, some borrowings display sound modifications: radyo, tren, kek, kart, ataç, problem, otorite, fingir bol.

There are various kinds of nominal compounds: The most common type is formed by a bare noun followed by another noun marked with the third person possessive morpheme: NOUN NOUN+3rd POSS. Some examples are çocuk sandalyesi, fizik dersi, okul çantası, çalışma masası. When preceded by çocuk, sandalye does not stand for any sandalye, but the kind that is designed for children. Likewise, fizik dersi is a kind of course, okul çantası is a kind of bag, and çalışma masası is a kind of table. Nominal compounds are also formed by juxtaposing two bare nouns (NOUN NOUN) or one case marked and one bare noun (NOUN+CASE NOUN). These, too, yield similar meanings. Some examples of both types are given below respectively. • taş bina ‘a kind of building’ (NOUN NOUN) • demir köprü ‘a kind of bridge’ (NOUN NOUN) kadın polis ‘police-woman’ (NOUN NOUN) • şekerden ev ‘a kind of house’ (NOUN+CASE NOUN) • kağıttan uçak ‘a kind of toy plane’ (NOUN+CASE NOUN)

Coordinative constructions consist of elements of equal status. That is, no verb is subordinated to another. Some examples of the above given verbs used coordinatively are ağladı durdu, unuttu gitti, tuttu sordu.

When the new meanings are fairly transparent in a compound, in other words, when the meaning of the whole is driven from the sum of its parts, it is defined as an endocentric compound. Examples listed in (19) above are all endocentric compounds.

Sometimes speakers of a language create previously non-existent roots in language. This is called coinage. The most common examples are trade names that eventually become common words used to represent a particular product. For example, rimel and jilet are in fact were trade names for a particular brand of mascara and razor blade. But now they are used to refer to ‘mascara’ and ‘razor blade’ of any brand in general. Other examples of this kind of generic use are aygaz ‘for gas’ and tursil for ‘washing powder’.

A special type of borrowing is called loantranslation, or calque. This word formation process allows word-for-word translations of new words into another language. For example, katma değer vergisi is the Turkish translation of value added tax. Other examples are doğalgaz ‘natural gas’, bilgi toplumu ‘information society’, uzaktan kumanda ‘remote control’, ekran koruyucu ‘screen saver’, insan hakları ‘human rights’, toplam kalite ‘total quality’, kız arkadaş ‘girl friend’.

Verbal compounds consisting of two verbs (V+V) are also possible. These are called double-verb constructions which are composed of a lexical verb and a postverb or a preverb forming a single unit. They are of two types: subordinative and coordinative (p: 86, Table 6.4.).

A word’s meaning may lose some of its semantic content. For example, the verb dirilmek was used to mean both ‘to live’ and ‘to resurrect’ in Old Turkish. It seems that its meaning has now been narrowed down to the latter only.

One type of adjectival compound includes nouns with the third person singular possessive marking followed by an adjective as in gözü pek, bahtı açık, alnı açık, karnı tok, sırtı pek. Another type includes bare adjectives followed by denominal adjectives as in kısa boylu, orta hararetli; or bare nouns followed by deverbal adjectives as in vatansever. Verb-adjective compounds as in vurdumduymaz, can also be used to derive new meanings.

Subordinative constructions can be made up of a converb of the lexical verb followed by a postverb. In these compounds, the first verb is subordinated to the second, and the second verb is the modifier of the first. The dur- verbs express lasting actions. The git- verbs express actions carried out to completion. The ver- verbs express actions done momentarily and easily. Subordinative constructions can also be made up of a converb of a preverb followed by a lexical verb (p: 86, Table 6.4.). In these compounds too, the first verb is subordinated to the second. However, this time the preverb is the modifier of the lexical verb: sormak means ‘to ask’, but tutup sormak means ‘to ask unexpectedly.’

A word’s meaning may broaden to include more semantic features. For example, the word alan in Turkish was used to mean ‘a plane area’, but now it is also used to refer to ‘a professional field’. The word dal has a similar etymology.

Backformation is process in which a simple word is derived from a more complex one. Not many examples can be found in Turkish except for a few examples are listed by Tietze (2002:72): • abart- à abar- • çisele à çise • diplomatik à diplomat • egemenlik à egemen.

A special case of semantic change is called eponymy through which proper nouns are converted into common nouns. For example, the word kot ‘jeans’ in Turkish was commonalized from the name of its manufacturer Muhteşem Kot.

Metaphorical extension involves using an existing word to refer to an object with similar properties of its referent. The output is not a completely new word, but a word with a new semantic interpretation. For example, çeşme in Turkish is a word of Persian origin. It is derived with the suffix -a from the stem çaşm which means eye. In this expression, the source of water is viewed as the human organ for seeing. Just like teardrops falling down from an eye, water falls down from a tap. The way some humanly characterizations are used to describe nature also constitues an example of metaphorical extension: İstanbul [Boğaz]ı, dağın [etek]leri, nehrin karşı [yaka]sı.

Clipping is a process that shortens a long word. In this reduction process, the meanings of words remain the same. Some examples are: • Liha for Saliha • Tel çekmek for telgraf çekmek • oto for otomobil • kondu for gecekondu.

Blending is a process in which a new word with a new meaning is made with parts of the component words. Some examples are: • Avr(upa) + Asya à Avrasya • bis(küvi) + (çi)kolata à biskolata • meka(nik) + (elek)tronik à mekatronik

An acronym is a word including the initial letters of the component words as: • TRT for Türkiye Radyo Televizyon Kurumu • YÖK for Yüksek Öğretim Kurumu TC for Türkiye Cumhuriyeti • ODTÜ for Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi • ABD for Amerika Birleşik Devletleri • KDV for Katma Değer Vergisi • KPDS for Kamu Personeli Dil Sınavı Turkish speakers do not often remember that these are acronyms, but rather use them as individual words.

Multiple processes refers to a case in which more than one word formation process is used to form new words. For example, düşe kalka bitirdik involves both derivation and reduplication. Its counterparts without the derivational suffix *düş kalk bitirdik, and without reduplication *düş bitirdik, *kalk bitirdik yield ungrammatical forms. Other examples include: • kardan adam : compounding/suffixation • programla- : borrowing/derivation with -la • fax : clipping/borrowing • teflon : coinage/borrowing Note that this analysis includes the processes involved in both source languages and the borrowing language, which is Turkish in this case. However, for the purposes of the course TUR401U, analyses of the processes used in only the borrowing language will suffice.