THE VARIABILITY IN THE INTERPRETATION OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF WH-ADJUNCTS WITHIN ISLAND STRUCTURES IN TURKISH

Journal Title: The Journal of International Social Research - Year 2016, Vol 9, Issue 46

Abstract

The interpretation of the reason and purpose denoting wh-adverbials in Turkish, neden, niye, niçin ‘why’ are always problematic within syntactic islands (Arslan, 1999, Görgülü, 2006, Çakır, 2015; 2016). Reinhart (1998) focuses on the different behaviors of the wh-adverbials ‘why e.g.’ and which-NP constructions ‘which student e.g.’ in-situ and proposes a choice-function analysis for them. Following her claims, Arslan (1999) proposes that wh-adverbials niye, neden, niçin 'why' cannot be interpreted within syntactic islands in Turkish while the interpretation of the which-NP constructions like hangi amaçla ‘for what reason’ or hangi sebeple ‘with what purpose’ in such structures are possible since they dominate an N-set from which an individual can be selected. These wh-adverbials, in fact, underwent a phonological attrition process and lost some of their phonetic substances: ne + için = niçin, ne+diye = niye, ne+ABL= neden. The full forms of these wh-expressions can be viewed as wh-pronominals within postpositional phrases whose noun sets are empty. Hence, the use of ne için ‘for what’ instead of niçin ‘why’ within island structures might produce more acceptable results. In the present study, the characteristics of different types of wh-adjuncts in Turkish are analyzed through a grammaticality judgment test and a missing word completion task. The findings of the study indicate that all wh-adjuncts do not behave similarly: the acceptability of wh-adverbials, wh-pronominals in postpositional phrases and which-NP constructions differ from one another, which shed light on the adjunct & argument asymmetry observed in Turkish. The syntactic explanations for the variation in the acceptability of different types of wh-adjuncts have been presented in the study as well.

Authors and Affiliations

Sinan ÇAKIR

Keywords

Related Articles

THE HOUSES OF AMASYA CITY IN THE REPUBLIC PERIOD

That is to say, when Amasya houses are built, the buildings which are important contributors to the branding of the city and which are mostly built before the republic come to mind. In the present report, the residences...

FACTORS AFFECTING CREDIT CARD OWNERSHIP OF STUDENTS

This study is conducted for the purpose of determining the effects of some socio‐economical and demographic factors on the credit card ownership of Students of Trakya University-Keşan Yusuf Çapraz School of Applied Scien...

PIONEERS OF FINANCE THEORY

Beginning from the end of XIX. century, there were a lot of scientists who contributed to develop finance as a discipline. At this point, it is tried to define short biographical information of 8 scientists who contribut...

THE NOVEL “MARRIED (MORIBER)” IN THE CONTEXT OF THE FOLK BELIEFS, FOLK NARRATIVES AND SUPERNATURAL EVENTS

The Novel named Married (Morıber) that written by Cengiz Aslan in 2011 has many information about folk beliefs and folk narratives. Events in the novel come true in Dersim region and the belief world of Dersim is shared...

A DIFFERENT EXAMPLE TO VIEW OF WOMEN IN CLASSICAL TURKISH LITERATURE: KISSA-I ERVE

In classical Turkish literature, the dedections about concept of women can be classidief in two ways. The first, texts which negative statements were used against women; second, texts which glorifying women is based on s...

Download PDF file
  • EP ID EP252625
  • DOI 10.17719/jisr.20164622573
  • Views 128
  • Downloads 0

How To Cite

Sinan ÇAKIR (2016). THE VARIABILITY IN THE INTERPRETATION OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF WH-ADJUNCTS WITHIN ISLAND STRUCTURES IN TURKISH. The Journal of International Social Research, 9(46), -. https://europub.co.uk/articles/-A-252625