turkish phonology and morphology (türkçe ses ve b‹ç‹mb‹lg‹s‹)

Unit 8 - Word Classes
lack grammatical mastery, but merely because there is a discrepancy between their
thoughts and the means with which they express these thoughts. Words are
considered to be the bodies of the thought, and a lack of word knowledge results
in a lack of expression of thought. Even in using their native language, most
speakers experience times of being speechless. This indicates a difficulty in
choosing the right words to express what we mean in the way that we mean it.
Words have the power to create the intended impression on the receiver. However,
not all words have the same semantic and syntactic/functional importance.
Open Classes vs Closed Classes
It is assumed that all languages make a distinction between open and closed partsof-speech
classes. This distinction is made based on the difference between words
in their semantic and functional importance. The open classes (also known as
content words) include nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs; the closed classes
include the rest: pronouns, postpositions, conjunctions, and interjections (also
known as function words). The communicative value of content words is much
higher because they are meaningful. Therefore, they are considered to be lexical
items. Closed class words, on the other hand, do not contribute to the meaning of
a sentence, but determine the syntax of it. In other words, the meaning of these
words can only be explained by referring to the relationship they establish between
the members of a sentence. So, we can say that open classes are more important
semantically, but closed classes are so functionally. Aitchison suggested an analogy
which equates open classes with bricks as building materials of a sentence, and
closed classes with mortar as relating sentence items to one another (Aitchison,
2003: 102).
Open classes have unlimited membership. That is, they have a very large
number of members. The closed classes, however, have relatively few members.
It is possible to make a quick list of, say, the pronouns or conjunctions used in a
language, but it might be a daunting job to make a list of all the nouns, verbs,
adjectives and adverbs used in that language.
The reason why open classes are called so is that they are open to new
membership. Whenever languages are in need of new words to label the emerging
concepts, they create or borrow words falling into this category. But it is less
likely, though not impossible, to add new members to the closed classes, for
example novel postpositions, or conjunctions, or pronouns.
There are also inflectional differences between the two classes. Members of
open classes undergo various grammatical inflections, so they have variable forms:
uyu, uyur, uyuyor, uyuyacak, uyumal›. Closed classes, except It is your for turn! the pronouns,
have invarient forms since they do not take up any grammatical inflections. 1 1
a. Pick out from the following list those words that belong to a closed It is your class: turn! sen, yesen,
It is your turn!
geçen, içten, benden, hem, hemen.
2 2
b. Give a part-of-speech classification of the words in the following: Dostluk hakk›nda
sohbetler pek hofla gidiyordu.
It is your turn!
It is your turn!
3 3
139
It is your turn!
It is your turn!
It is your turn!
4 4
It is your turn!
It is your turn!
5 5
It is your turn!
It is your turn!
6 6