SENTENCE STRUCTURE AND PHRASE STRUCTURE

Traditional grammars describe a sentence as the complete expression of one thought. Modern linguists avoid this description because of the difficulties involved in determining what a thought is. Kaya parças› can express one thought, but it is not a sentence. Dün seninle sinemaya gitmek için geldim is one sentence, but it expresses two thoughts.

Clauses are defined as syntactic units that have a subject and a predicate. (We shall see below what subject and predicate mean.) Sentences are combined of clauses. A sentence can consist of one clause, two or more clauses due their recursive properties. Seni gördüm is a sentence with one clause, seni görmeye geldim is a sentence with two clauses.

The first constituent of the sentence (B) is said to be its subject; while the second constituent (C) is the predicate of the sentence. The relationship between the subject and the predicate is called predication. It has been known since the Greek philosopher, Aristotle, that all sentences consist of a subject and a predicate. A predicate is what remains in a sentence after the subject is excluded.

A simple subject is usually a Noun Phrase (NP), which has a noun as its central element (head). Subjects in Turkish are usually the initial noun phrase in a sentence with a tensed verb. The verb in the sentence agrees with the subject in terms of number and person. Subjects are almost universally assigned nominative case. Subjects in the following sentences are given in bold characters:

9. Ünlü şarkıcı deniz kenarındaki lokantada balık yedi.

10. iki akıllı kız marul salatası yediler.

Unlike languages like English, Turkish can have null subjects.This means that the subject pronoun can be dropped. Remember that languages have common properties, which are called principles; and variations which are said to be parameters. Some languages like English and French do not allow null subjects.

Turkish verbs have agreement suffixes, which show agreement with their subjects in terms of number and person. Number can be singular or plural; and person features are first, second, and third person. The bold characters in the examples below show agreement suffixes:

15. Ben çok çalışırım. (First person singular) 16. Sen çok çalışırsın. (Second person singular) 17. Ahmet çok çalışır. (Third person singular)

One of the general rules that phrases manifest is head-directionality. The direction of the head differs from one language to another. In Turkish, the head of a phrase is always at final position. In other words, Turkish is a head final language, while English is head-initial. Compare the following examples:

23. dün sat›n ald›¤›m kitap NP – Head kitap
the book that I bought yesterdray NP- Head book

Noun Phrases (NPs) mostly function as subjects and objects in sentences. The last word of a NP is a noun in Turkish. A NP can consist of a single word, a noun or a pronoun, or more than one word. The head of a NP is almost always inflected for case, i.e. nominative, accusative, dative, ablative, genitive, and possessive.

The word bir has two different meanings: it may be an indefinite article or it may show the number of the noun, i.e. a numeral. Consider these different meanings of bir in the phrases below:

36. a. bir güzel genç kız, iki güzel genç kız, üç güzel genç kız
b. güzel bir genç kız? güzel iki genç kız (The question mark ‘?’ shows that the syntactic category is somewhat odd, even if it is not totally ungrammatical.)

In (36a), bir is used to show the number, however, in (36b) it functions as a determiner. The numeral precedes adjectives that modify the head noun, e.g. bir güzel genç kız. On the other hand, the article follows the adjective in NP: güzel bir genç kız. That is why the second phrase güzel iki genç kız in (36b) seems odd.

Word classes that express a relation between two entities, such as place, time, location, etc. are known as adpositions. If the adposition appears before the noun, it is a preposition, if it appears after the noun, it is a postposition. While English has prepositions, Turkish has postpositions. The functions of some English prepositions are fulfilled in Turkish by some case suffixes. However, there are also independent words which are postpositions. Some Turkish postpositions such as ile can become clitics

Adjectives are used to modify nouns. In Turkish, it is difficult to draw a line between adjectives and nouns. This is because adjectives take case and plural endings as nouns do, such as kız (noun) - k›zlar, genç (adj.) – gençler; kıza and gence, etc. However, nouns cannot take superlative and comparative degrees as gradable adjectives: *daha kız and *en kız; daha genç (comparative), en genç(superlative).

Predicates are typically constituents that follow subjects in sentences. Predicates:

• express the action carried by the subject,

• provide description of the subject,

• show what happened to the subject.

• express a psychological state experienced by the subject.

A Noun Phrase in Turkish may consist of following types of constituents:

• The head (obligatory by definition)

• One or more adjective phrases

• An attributive noun

• One or more relative clause(s)

• One or more determiner(s) (A referential determiner, A quantificational determiner, otherwise A referential determiner + the indefinite article)

Adjectives can appear at different positions in a sentence, as a modifier of a noun (in that case they are inside NPs, as k›rm›z› kitap) and they are called attributive adjectives.

Adverbs represent a particularly heterogeneous group in languages in terms of both meaning and use, when compared to nouns, adjectives, or verbs. They have different meanings and modify different syntactic categories. In addition to this, adverbs, as well as other syntactic categories, can function as adverbials.

Adverbs constitute a set of word class; an Adverb Phrase is a phrase which has an adverb as its head. On the other hand, adverbials include Adv.Ps as well as other syntactic categories that are not adverbs or adverb phrases, but function like adverbs. Adverbials are manifested as in the following syntactic categories: Adv.Ps, NPs, PPs, and Adverbial Clauses.

Disjuncts: Disjuncts are adverbials that show point of view, wish, other feelings, opinion, etc. of a speaker. Some examples are: Ne yaz›k ki, iyi ki, maalesef, inflallah, etc. Alternatively, disjuncts can show modality, such as possibility, certainty, probability, ability, etc. Some examples are: Mutlaka, kesinlikle, belki, galiba, etc.

The term copula is defined as a small class of verbs mostly with little semantic content that link the subject to its predicative NP, Adj.P, or PP. Sometimes, these verbs are also referred to as linking verbs. A copula can denote the current or resulting state. A copula is neither transitive nor intransitive. It constitutes a different category. Some copular verbs in English are be, become, seem, etc. In Turkish, copular verbs are ‹mek, olmak, zero copula, etc. A copula cannot stand on its own.