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

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Figure 5.3
Turkish Phonology and Morphology (Türkçe Ses ve Biçim Bilgisi)
Allomorphy
Just as the phoneme, the abstract unit in phonology, the morpheme is an instance
of abstraction in morphology. Thus, the notation, say, -lAr which is used to
represent the plural morpheme in Turkish, is an abstract symbol. The sounds
subject to change on the surface structure of a morpheme are customarily
capitalized to mark their underlying abstract status. Their actual surface phonetic
realizations are specified based on the phonological environment in which the
morpheme occurs. Conditioned by its phonological surrounding, two variations
are possible for the plural morpheme as shown in (8a) and (8b):
(8) a. [ler] ev-ler, ifl-ler, kütük-ler, söz-ler
b. [lar] okul-lar, s›n›f-lar, kutu-lar, toz-lar
The choice between /e/ and /a/ is determined by the preceding stem vowel. In
(8a) all the preceding stem vowels are front; whereas, in (8b) they are non-front. The
morpheme manifests itself as -ler after the front vowels, but as -lar after the non-front.
Even though they are two different phonetic representations, they represent the same
morpheme and serve the same grammatical function of indicating plurality. Therefore,
they are characterized as the variations of the same morpheme which are called
allomorphs. This means that every morpheme has predictable allomorphs which
are in complementary distribution. The position where one allomorph occurs disallows
the occurance of the other counterpart. Thus, -ler and -lar are in complementary
distribution in that they cannot appear in the same phonological environment. They
mutually exclude each other when certain conditions occur. Compare *evlar, *ifllar,
*kütüklar, *sözlar where -lar is disallowed; and *okuller, *s›n›fler, *kutuler, *otoler
where -ler is disallowed. This definition is schematized in Figure 5.3.
Other patterns of distribution for some productive allomorphs in Turkish are
listed below.
The Morpheme Marking Reported Past /-mIfl/
The morpheme marking reported past applies to verbs and it has four allomorphs.
Conditioned by the rounding harmony, the high suffix vowel /›/ in -mIfl agrees
with the stem vowel in backness and rounding. This yields four variations: [-m›fl],
[-mifl], [-mufl], and [-müfl].
[m›fl] al-m›fl, s›z-m›fl
[mifl] sil-mifl, sez-mifl
[mufl] uyu-mufl, soy-mufl
[müfl] gör-müfl, gül-müfl
PLURAL MORPHEME /-lAr/
preceding vowel front non-front
allomorphs [-ler] [-lar]