28.1637, Review: Turkish; Turkic; Discourse Analysis; General Ling; Language Acquisition; Pragmatics; Socioling: Zeyrek, Atas, Simsek, Rehbein (2015)
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LINGUIST List: Vol-28-1637. Tue Apr 04 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.
Subject: 28.1637, Review: Turkish; Turkic; Discourse Analysis; General Ling; Language Acquisition; Pragmatics; Socioling: Zeyrek, Atas, Simsek, Rehbein (2015)
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Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2017 11:38:05
From: Emine Yarar [yarar at hacettepe.edu.tr]
Subject: Ankara Papers in Turkish and Turkic Linguistics
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/27/27-2046.html
EDITOR: Ufuk Atas
EDITOR: Jochen Rehbein
EDITOR: Çigdem Sagin Simsek
EDITOR: Deniz Zeyrek
TITLE: Ankara Papers in Turkish and Turkic Linguistics
SERIES TITLE: Turcologica, 103
PUBLISHER: ISD, Distributor of Scholarly Books
YEAR: 2015
REVIEWER: Emine Yarar, Hacettepe University
Reviews Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry
Summary
Ankara Papers in Turkish and Turkic Linguistics, which is the conference
proceedings of the Sixteenth International Conference on Turkic Languages
(ICTL), covers the revised conference papers on the linguistic analyses of
both the Turkish language and Turkic languages. Specifically, the volume
consists of a total of fifty-seven papers, dealing with linguistic analysis in
distinct major linguistic fields. The papers covered in the volume are written
either in Turkish or in English. These studies were all presented at the ICTL,
which was organized by Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey, and
held between 18 and 21 September 2012.
The book consisted of seven main sections: phonetics and phonology; syntax and
morphology; first language acquisition and second language acquisition;
discourse, semantics and pragmatics; language contact and sociolinguistics;
Turkic languages and the category of prospective in Turkic languages. The
papers covered in the first five sections were presented at the general
sessions of the conference. The last two sections involve the papers presented
at two workshops, namely Turkic languages and prospective in Turkic languages,
organized under the ICTL.
The first section, namely phonetics and phonology, includes six papers
concerned with various topics, including the analysis of an individual vowel,
[ï], in Turkish, consonant deletion in Turkish, acoustic properties of
consonants in Turkish, and acoustic features of focus in Turkish, information
structure of Turkish yes/no questions and phrase stress in Turkish. All papers
present new analyses of the topics employing well-established linguistic
methods and approaches. In other words, these are comprehensive examples of
experimental phonology. Nearly all studies in this section employ an empirical
approach to describe the topics at hand.
The section on syntax and morphology is composed of eleven research papers.
Although the majority of these studies are theoretical, there are also two
experimental studies. One of these experimental studies analyzes the
processing of relative clauses in Turkish using a discourse-based approach.
The other one examines the island constraints observed in Turkish wh-phrases
based on judgement data. Theoretical studies present the analyses of various
syntactic and morphological constructions such as diachronic and synchronic
transitive reflexives in Turkish, copular structures of Turkish,
nominalization morphemes in Turkish, Turkish complex predicates, Turkish free
relatives, binding phenomena in Turkish, Turkish possessive-free genitives and
combined predicates of Turkish. The second group of syntactic studies employ
contemporary approaches, including the minimalist program and nano-syntax.
The next section, namely first and second language acquisition, includes eight
studies analyzing the acquisition of certain grammatical structures of Turkish
as a first language as well as a second language. Of them six studies focuses
on the acquisition of specific structures such as modals and complementation
in Turkish as well as on the acquisition of macro structures such as
developmental relations in Turkish narration. Two studies deal with the
acquisition of Turkish vowels by non-native speaker groups. Of them, the first
study analyzes the acquisition of Turkish vowels by Japanese learners. The
other one again deals with the acquisition of Turkish vowels by Swahili
speakers. All studies in this section use an experimental approach to describe
the acquisition process of Turkish either as a first language or as a second
language.
The section on discourse, semantics and pragmatics consists of ten papers and
covers the analysis of various grammatical structures in different discourse
types. The structures analyzed include referring expressions, multi-word
units, demonstrative pronouns, focal properties of Turkish locatives and
existentials, dictionary- and corpus-based word definitions and restitution in
Turkish. The section also features a study concerning the rhetorical structure
of research article abstracts written in Turkish. Another study deals with
translation errors of Turkish ELT students in the context of an undergraduate
English-Turkish translation course. All papers covered in this section are
based on experimental designs and corpus data, and therefore, present the
experimental findings about the grammatical structures examined. In addition
to using conventional analysis techniques there are also studies which employ
new techniques used to describe the grammatical structures of Turkish,
including line graphs and ngrams.
The fifth section, namely language contact and sociolinguistics, involves a
total of seven papers and focuses on code switching and Turkish dialects
spoken outside Turkey to describe sociopolitical and linguistic development of
Turkish. The papers covered also present the analysis of specific grammatical
constructions produced by monolingual and bilingual speakers of Turkish. The
constructions examined are embedded clauses, word order, wh-questions, lexical
borrowings and converbs. Another study deals with verbal criticisms observed
in daily spoken interactions. The studies in this section employ real-life
data and also present the experimental findings about the topics to reveal the
features of Turkish language used in Turkey and in other geographical areas.
The next section is about the linguistic analysis of Turkic languages. There
are ten papers in the section, all of which were part of a workshop named
Turkic languages. The languages and language varieties analyzed include the
Urum of Cyprus, Old Turkic, the Oghuz language, Sakha (Yakut), the Mishar
dialect of Kazan Tatar, and Tyvan (Tuvan). These studies are mostly concerned
with the analysis of grammatical structures such as valency in derivational
nominalizations, palatalization, causative-marked passive constructions, the
suffixes of the conditional and terminative moods and derivation from plural
stems. Some of these studies use the data gathered from native speakers of the
languages or varieties given above. In addition, one of these studies deals
with the introduction of the Urum language spoken in Cyprus. Not focusing on a
specific grammatical structure this study presents a brief description of the
language in terms of its lexicon, phonology, morphology and syntax. It also
presents the effects of language contact on Urum. In the same section there
are also several contrastive analyses between Turkish and other related
languages, including Southern Azerbaijani, Northern Azerbaijani and Khalaj.
These contrastive studies describe specific grammatical structures, including
copied passives and causative versus anti-causative alternations, between the
languages given above. In addition, there is also one study analyzing Turkic
languages as a whole in terms of genealogical and typological grouping and
mutual intelligibility among these languages.
The final section, namely prospective in Turkic languages, includes the papers
presented at the workshop with the same name at the International Conference
on Turkish Linguistics. There are five studies dealing with the category of
prospective (future tense category referring to immediate future, near future
and close future) in Modern Uyghur, Turkish, Gagauz, Modern Kazakh, Dzungar
Tuvan. The general conclusion of the papers on prospective structures is that
each Turkic language has its own means for the category of prospective and
that each Turkish has striking distinctions concerning the development of this
category in contrast to Old Turkic. In addition, it is concluded that there is
no uniformity among Turkic languages in terms of the grammatical devices used
for the category of prospective.
Evaluation
This volume and its parent conference are both significant contributions to
linguists interested in Turkish and Turkic languages. The conference papers in
the volume are well categorized based on study topics. Therefore, the volume
provides an invaluable opportunity to be informed about the latest research on
Turkish and Turkic languages. Each section is composed of very comprehensive
and detailed research about different linguistic structures of Turkish. In
addition, the book presents interesting and informative description and
analysis of various Turkic languages, and provides the findings of empirical
and theoretical studies on the Turkish language. The studies involved are
mostly based on corpus data or natural data gathered from native speakers of
Turkish and Turkic languages. All the data collected were analyzed using a
well-defined statistical analysis technique, and are transcribed, making it
possible to have full understanding of the grammatical structures analyzed.
It should also be noted that those who would like to have detailed information
about Turkic languages will find the papers covered in the last two sections
very useful. These two sections offer a detailed description of different
Turkic languages based on natural data collected from native speakers.
Therefore, these papers are a very valuable collection of studies on Turkic
languages. The sixth section also includes a brief introduction to Urum, which
has been less analysed in contrast to other Turkic languages. The last section
offer a comprehensive analysis and description of Turkic languages in terms of
a single grammatical structure, namely prospective means. It allows for reader
to have a comprehensive understanding of the linguistic structures used to
express the category of prospective in the languages examined.
The papers were first reviewed for inclusion at the ICTL. The authors
redesigned their papers based on the feedback given following their oral
presentation. The final versions of the papers were also reviewed. Given that
all papers covered in the volume were subject to the double blind peer-review,
the quality of the volume is at a desired level. In addition, the majority of
the papers are written in English, making it possible for international
readers to read the studies. Thus, the volume achieves its goal in offering
quality research papers on Turkish and Turkic languages and in informing
scholars concerning the latest research findings about the languages analysed.
As a final word, the volume successfully both indicates the current state of
the linguistic studies on Turkish and Turkic languages, and offers ideas and
potential topics for future research on Turkish and Turkic languages.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Emine Yarar is the faculty member at English Linguistics Department of
Hacettepe University. She completed her PhD studies at the same department in
2002. Her research interests include Turkish syntax and morphology, sentence
processing and modality.
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