Linguistics

N. Sekhniashvili

Balta Değmedik Orman 'the Wood Which was not Touched by an Ax' Type Participle Costructions in Turkish

This kind of constructions include all the participles: -(y)An, -(V)r, -mIş, -(y)AcAk, -DIk. They are made by intransitive verbs and consist of three components: a participle (yetişen), a subject of the action expressed by the participle in the preposition (arpa) and a qualified noun (yer). The qualified noun indicates a place (rarely time) of the action expressed by the participle. The subject mainly means the nature: the sun, wind, clouds, rain, water flow, animals, birds, plants; tools: güneş vurmuş tepeler 'the hills struck by the sun'; kuş uçmaz kervan geçmez yer 'the place where a bird does not fly and a caravan does not go'; horoz çok olan yer 'the place where there are (they have) many cocks' etc... There are synonym constructions made by personal participles -DIK-, -(y)AcAK- with possessive suffixes: dondurma satılan//satıldığı yer; buğday yetişecek //yetişeceği tarla; yağmur yağan//yağdığı günler.

Probably these lexically restricted participle constructions remained from the earlier stages of the formation of Turkish language, when the functions of the participles where not finally defined and differed from the personal participles (-DIK-, -(y)AcAK-).

 

Tbilisi Institute of Asia and Africa
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