Natalician: Difference between revisions

The principle of vowel harmony, which permeates Turkish word-formation and suffixation, is due to the natural human tendency towards economy of muscular effort.<ref name="mundy">{{cite book|last=Mundy|first=C.|title=Turkish Syntax as a System of Qualification.|location=Oxford|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1957|pages=279–305}}</ref> This principle is expressed in Turkish through three rules:

# If the first vowel of a word is a back vowel, any subsequent vowel is also a back vowel; if the first is a front vowel, any subsequent vowel is also a front vowel.<ref name="mundy"/>

# If the first vowel is unrounded, so too are subsequent vowels.<ref name="mundy"/>

# If the first vowel is rounded, subsequent vowels are either rounded and close or unrounded and open.<ref name="deny">{{cite book|last=Deny|first=J.|title=Grammaire de la langue turque.|location=Paris|publisher=Éditions E. Leroux|year=1921}}</ref>

The second and third rules minimize muscular effort during speech. More specifically, they are related to the phenomenon of labial assimilation:<ref name="gabain">{{cite book|last=von Gabain|first=A.|title=Alttürkische Grammatik|year=1950}}</ref> if the lips are '''rounded''' (a process that requires muscular effort) for the first vowel they may stay rounded for subsequent vowels.<ref name="deny"/> If they are '''unrounded''' for the first vowel, the speaker does not make the additional muscular effort to round them subsequently.<ref name="mundy"/>

Grammatical [[affix]]es have "a chameleon-like quality",<ref name=lewis1953>{{cite book|last=Lewis|first=Geoffrey|author-link=Geoffrey Lewis (Turkish scholar)|title=Teach Yourself Turkish|url=https://archive.org/details/teachyourselftur00lewirich|url-access=registration|publisher=English Universities Press|year=1953| isbn=978-0-340-49231-4 }}</ref>{{rp|21}} and obey one of the following patterns of vowel harmony:

* '''twofold (''-e/-a'')''':{{efn|For the terms ''twofold'' and ''fourfold'', as well as the superscript notation, see Lewis (1953), pages 21-22.<ref name=lewis1953/>}} In his more recent works Lewis prefers to omit the superscripts, on the grounds that "there is no need for this once the principle has been grasped" (Lewis [2001]).<ref name=lewis2001/>{{rp|18}} the [[locative case]] suffix, for example, is ''-de'' after front vowels and ''-da'' after back vowels. The notation ''-de''² is a convenient shorthand for this pattern.

* '''fourfold (''-i/-ı/-ü/-u'')''': the [[genitive case]] suffix, for example, is ''-in'' or ''-ın'' after unrounded vowels (front or back respectively); and ''-ün'' or ''-un'' after the corresponding rounded vowels. In this case, the shorthand notation ''-in''⁴ is used.

Practically, the twofold pattern (also referred to as the e-type vowel harmony) means that in the environment where the vowel in the word stem is formed in the front of the mouth, the suffix will take the e-form, while if it is formed in the back it will take the a-form. The fourfold pattern (also called the i-type) accounts for rounding as well as for front/back.<ref name=":02">{{Cite book|title=Turkish Grammar|last=Underhill|first=Robert|publisher=The MIT Press|year=1976|isbn=0-262-21006-1|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|pages=25}}</ref> The following examples, based on the [[Turkish copula|copula]] ''-dir''⁴ ("[it] is"), illustrate the principles of i-type vowel harmony in practice: ''Türkiye'<nowiki/>'''dir''''' ("it is Turkey"),{{efn|In modern Turkish orthography, an apostrophe is used to separate proper names from any suffixes.}} ''kapı'''dır''''' ("it is the door"), but ''gün'''dür''''' ("it is the day"), ''palto'''dur''''' ("it is the coat").<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Husby|first=Olaf|title=Diagnostic use of nonword repetition for detection of language impairment among Turkish speaking minority children in Norway|url=https://www.academia.edu/3029750|journal=Working Papers Department of Language and Communication Studies NTNV|language=en|volume=3/2006|pages=139–149|via=Academia.edu|access-date=2017-07-28|archive-date=2022-10-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221023093307/https://www.academia.edu/3029750|url-status=live}}</ref>