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

s
h
l
tS
R
d
Unit 2 - Turkish Consonants
The IPA symbols as mentioned before, are used as “shorthand descriptions of
the articulations involved” (Ladefoged, 1982:33). [f], for example, is used to describe
a voiceless labiodental fricative. [dZ], on the other hand, is used to describe a
voiced palato-alveolar affricate. Conventionally, consonants are described in the
following order: Voicing, place of articulation, and manner of articulation as
illustrated above.
The consonants of Turkish and English are similar. However, English has
consonants that do not occur in Turkish such as /T/, /D/, /w/, /®/, /N/, /v/. /T/,
and /D/ are interdental fricatives produced with the tongue tip between the teeth
as in the words ‘thumb’ and ‘those’ respectively. /w/ is a labiovelar central
approximant produced at the velum with the lips rounded – two simultaneous
articulations, one at the velum and the other at the lips. Examles of words containing
/w/ are white, war, whale
/®/, the initial sound of words ‘right’, ‘real’, ‘rock’ is an alveolar central
approximant. In the production of /®/, the sides of the tongue is against the sides
of the teeth. The air flows over the center of the tongue. Some speakers may curl
back the tip of the tongue. There is also some degree of lip rounding in the
production of /®/.
/N/ is a velar nasal produced by a complete obstruction in the oral tract by
raising the back of the tongue to the velum. The words ‘sing’, ‘rang’, ‘doing’ have
[N] as the final sound. [N] is generally spelled as ‘-ng’ in English. The sound [N]
cannot occur in word-initial position in English.
The letter ‘v’ represents two different sounds in Turkish and English. Although
the place of articulation is the same in the two languages, ‘v’, as discussed above,
is a central approximant in Turkish but a fricative in English.
The English consonants are summarized in Table 2.2.
Table 2.2
English Consonants
Place Bilabial Inter Labio- Alveolar Palato- Palatal Velar Glottal
Manner dental dental alveolar
Stop p b t d k g
Nasal m n N
Fricative T D f v s z S Z h
Approximate
Central (w) ® j (w)
Lateral l
Affricate tS dZ
23