Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar

Glossary of grammatical terms 472
copular markers markers that contain the -y- form of the copula: the unstressable
suffixes -(y)DI, -(y)mIş and -(y)sA
counterfactual (of a conditional clauseor a main clause that implies the fulfilment of a
condition) expressing what is known not to have happened, or not to be the case (e.g.
(If you had told me) I would have come)
dative one of the five case markers (-(y)A), often expressing concepts such as to, into,
on to
definite the status of a noun phrase that refers to a specific entity or entities which the
speaker assumes to be unambiguously identifiable by the addressee(s) (e.g. France,
the first house, these plates)
demonstrative a determiner or pronoun that has (literally or figuratively) a ‘pointing’
function (e.g. this, those)
dental articulated with the tip of the tongue against the upper front teeth
denti-alveolar articulated with the tip or blade of the tongue at the junction between the
top teeth and the alveolar ridge
derivation the creation of a new lexical item, by suffixation (e.g. iyileş- ‘get better’,
tuzlu ‘salty’), compounding (e.g. karabiber ‘black pepper, futbol takımı ‘football
team’) or reduplication (simsiyah ‘jet black’)
derivational suffix a suffix which, when added to a stem, produces a new lexical item
whose meaning is connected to that of the stem (e.g. -lAş- ‘become’, -lI ‘having’,
‘characterized by’)
derived (of a word) that contains one or more (usually derivational) suffixes in addition
to the root
determiner a word whose function is to specify the limitation (or lack of limitation) of
the potential referent of a noun phrase (e.g. this city, some daily newspapers, every
university student)
direct object the complement of a transitive verb, as in John is building a boat, I’v e
finished my work
discourse connective a word or phrase which provides a cohesive link between two
sentences or larger pieces of discourse, indicating how the content of what is newly
uttered relates to what has gone before (e.g. what’s more, however, or rather, in
short); sometimes just called a connective
distributive numeral a form of numeral expressing one each, two each, etc.
echo question a question which partly (or in full) repeats a statement just made by
another speaker, e.g. A: John’s bought a crocodile. B: He’s bought what?/John’s
bought a crocodile?
ellipsis (or elision) the omission of a linguistic item that is readily identifiable from the
context, e.g. our in our friends and (…) neighbours) or I’m in Where are you? (…)
Here.
epenthetic vowel a high vowel that appears in the second syllable of certain nouns, only
in the root form or when a suffix beginning with a consonant is added (e.g. resmi
‘his/her picture’, but resim ‘picture’, resimler ‘pictures’)
evidential a type of modal marking (with -mIş or -(y)mIş) which indicates that a
statement is based upon knowledge acquired by the speaker indirectly
existential sentence a nominal sentence which asserts (or, in the negative, denies) the
existence or presence of some entity or entities; there are two types: locative,