LING 313 Fall 2022

Phonology and morphology of Turkish Week #4

LING 313 - Phonology and Morphology of Turkish

Week 4
Metin Bağrıaçık
metin.bagriacik@boun.edu.tr

Topic: Phonemics, consonant and vowel phonemes (continues from last week)
Reading: ET 36-41
Objectives: The students are expected to attain knowledge in the following topics:
• to formally describe the distribution of long vowels in Turkish

1 Vowel length: phonemic or not?

There have been two analyses put forward for long vowels in Turkish:
Analysis I

• According to this analysis, there is a contrasting long vowel for every short phoneme;
therefore, the phonemic inventory of Turkish includes eight short and eight long vowels:

(1) a. [i:]man e. [W:]dır

[i]mam [W]tır
b. t[e:]min f. va:kıf
d[e]min v[a]kıf
c. d[y:]me g. s[u:]ret
d[y]ne s[u]rat
d. [ø:]ren h. [o:]lan
[ø]ren [o]lan

/a:/ /e:/ /i:/ /u:/ /o:/ /ø/ /y/ /W/

[a:] [e:] [i:] [u:] [o:] [ø:] [y:] [W:]

Analysis II (Lees 1961)

• Lees (1961) observes that certain long vowels behave differently, in particular [y:, o:, W:,
ø:]
• Lees (1961) proposes that it is an underlying voiced velar fricative /G/, which also plays a
major role in vowel lengthening. Whereas /a:/, /e:/, /i:/, /u:/ occur also as true phonemic
long vowels, [y:, o:, W:, ø:] occur only by virtue of this /G/ that is deleted itself.
• Evidence for the existence of /G/?
• Compare the following set of words to which the third person possessive is added:

(2) a. ad[a] b. bin[a:] c. d[a:] ‘dağ’

ad[a]-sı bin[a:]-sı d[a]-ı

1 of 4
LING 313 Fall 2022
Phonology and morphology of Turkish Week #4

• In (3c), the possessive is expected to be -{sı}, because the word, as it is pronounced, ends
in a long vowel. However, this is not the case, the suffix is -{ı}. This is the suffix that is
added to words that end in a consonant:

(3) a. sama[n]-ı b. kana[th ]-ı c. ma[ë]-ı

• So the word [da:] ‘mountain’ behave as if it ends in a consonant when you add the posses-
sive suffix. This is a piece of evidence that there is an underlying consonant there. Lees
(1961) chooses /G/ because it is historically motivated and because in certain dialects it
is still preserved. The reason why we write ! ğ " in orthography is in fact the overt reflex
of this underlying phoneme.
• This /G/ is observed in stem or word-final position. According to Lees (1961) all occur-
rences of [y:, o:, W:, ø:] can be tied to the existence of this /G/, whereas [a:], [e:], [i:], [u:]
also occur phonemically as well as because of /G/.
• What does this /G/ do then? Generally speaking, in stem- or word-final position, it length-
ens the preceding vowel but then it gets deleted.

(4) a. V : V[ +long] / /G/ $ or #

b. /G/ : Ø → this means /G/ is ‘deleted’

/a:/ /a/: /G/$ /e:/ /e/: /G/$ /i:/ /i/: /G/$ /u:/ /u/: /G/$

[a:] [e:] [i:] [u:]

/o/: /G/$ /ø/: /G/$ /y/: /G/$ /W/: /G/$

[o:] [ø:] [y:] [W:]

• But this is not the end of the story. In certain contexts, /G/ does no lengthen the preceding
V or it gets ‘deleted’.
• Here are what happens to it more analytically:
(a) When it is in word-final or stem final position following a back vowel, it lengthens the
preceding vowel and then gets deleted:

(5) a. d[a:] ‘mountain’ b. y[a:]mur ‘rain’ (yağ-)

(b.1) When it is in word-final or stem final position following a front vowel, it wither lengthens
the preceding vowel and then gets deleted or is pronounced as a platal glide [j/:
(6) a. d[y:]me or d[yj]me‘button’ (düğme)
b. [i:]ne or [ij]ne ‘needle’ (iğne)
(b.2) Between two identical front vowels it is either deleted or pronounced as a palatal glide:
(7) a. d[y:]n or d[yjy]n ‘wedding’ (düğün)

2 of 4
LING 313 Fall 2022
Phonology and morphology of Turkish Week #4

b. benl[i:]m or benl[iji]m ‘my personality’ (benliğim)

(b.3) Between different front vowels it is either deleted or pronounced as a palatal glide:
(8) a. [deil] or [dejil] ‘not’ (değil)
b. [eith ] or [ejith ] ‘educate’ (eğit)
(c.1) Between identical back vowels it is deleted:

(9) a. [u:]r ‘luck’ (uğur) b. s[W:]r ‘buffalo’ (sığır)

(c.2) Between two distinct back vowels, it is inaudible, i.e., it gets deleted:

(10) a. [soan] ‘onion’ (soğan) c. [aWR] ‘heavy’ (ağır)

˚
b. [soukh ] ‘cold’ (soğuk)

/G/

vowel lengthener vowel lengthener or [j] no phonetic value

/jaG/ →[ja:] /dyGme/ →[dy:me] or [dyjme] /joGun/ → [joun]

Kabak (2007)
Kabak (2007) scrutinizes the picture given above concerning vowel lengthening and /G/-deletion:1
(a) The relevant observation is that in certain V1 GV2 sequences, the surface long vowel can
have the exact shape of V1 .
(11) a. [soukh ] or [so:kh ] ‘cold’
b. [aWz] or [a:z] ‘mouth’
c. [gøys] or [gø:s] ‘breast’
ff ff
d. [jouRt ] or [jo:Rth ] ‘yoghurt’
h

For this to happen, both V1 and V2 must have the identical [±front] and [±round] feature.
If, say, V1 is [+round] but V2 is [-round], this assimilation does not happen (12a). Sim-
ilarly, if, say, V1 is [-round] but V2 is [+round], again, the assimilation does not happen
(12b):
(12) a. * [so:n] ‘onion’, cf. [soan]
b. * [a:sth os] ‘it fits’, cf. [austh os]
This happens also at word-boundary, when there is a suffix, as long as the vowels meet
the above criterion:
(13) [badZa:m] ‘bacağım’.
1
In fact, Kabak(2007) account far exceeds the context of /G/: it is in fact on any two adjacent V-sequences, but
"
we are here focusing on the V.V contexts that are generated by /G/-deletion.

3 of 4
LING 313 Fall 2022
Phonology and morphology of Turkish Week #4

(b) Although e.i sequence meets the above criterion, the assimilation does not apply.
(14) * [de:l] ‘not’ (değil), cf. [deil] or [dejil]
(c) In e.i sequences, instead a palatal glide /j/ is inserted commonly:
(15) a. [dejil] ‘not’
b. [ath ejisth ] ‘atheist’
c. [kh afejin] ‘caffeine’
(d) Similarly, if both vowels are identical front vowels, /j/ is inserted commonly:
(16) a. [dyjyn] ‘wedding’
b. [ejær] ‘if’
˚
(e) In other vowel sequences where assimilation does not apply, other glides may break the
V.V sequence.
• If V1 is [W] then a velar glide [î] can be inserted:
(17) a. [sWar] or [sWîar] ‘it fits’
˚ ˚
b. [sW:r] or [sWîWr] ‘cattle’
˚ ˚
• A velar glide [î] can also be inserted in between two identical back vowels:

(18) a. [sa:r] or [saîar] ‘s/he milks (the cow)’

˚ ˚
b. [u:r] or [uîur] ‘luck’
˚ ˚
• If V1 is a round back vowel then a bilabial glide [w] can be inserted"

(19) a. [soan] or [sowan] ‘onion’

b. [doa] or [dowa] ‘nature’

Reference
Kabak, Barış. 2007. Hiatus resolution in Turkish: An underspecification account. Lingua 117:1378–1411.
Lees, Robert. 1961. The phonology of modern standard Turkish. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

4 of 4