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

Word-Formation
Processes
INTRODUCTION
During the Selçuklu and Ottoman times in Anatolia, it was considered utterly
important to maintain a high standard in craftsmanship. Therefore, as a quality
control mechanism, inspectors called yi¤itbafllar› would be appointed by the Ahi
Organization (Chamber of Tradesmen) to report the administration malpractice
in their district. In addition to being charged depending on the nature of the
crime, the guilty would also be subject to large publicity. For example, when
charged for fraud, the shoes of a shoe-maker would conventionally be thrown
out by the inspecting team on the roof of his shop, and be left there to decay.
Whoever saw the shoes on the roof would know that the owner was involved in
dishonest conduct. This folk story inspired a new expression papucu dama
at›lmak which since then has been used to refer to someone who has lost prestige
(Korkmaz, 1995: 292).
Change, like with everything else, is inevitable in language as well. Turkish
spoken in ‹stanbul today is strikingly different from Turkish spoken five centuries
ago. Numbers of new words have been formed by productive word formation
processes and added to the word stock of the language while some unproductive
ones had dropped out. This chapter is devoted to describing such means of lexical
innovation employed in Turkish
In Unit 5, we discussed how words are structured in Turkish. In doing so, we
focused on the already existing words and defined the form of these words. But
there are also new derivations, new combinations of words, and novel words that
are constantly added to the lexicon. For example, the expression in our story
papucu dama at›lmak was new at the time it was created. Similarly, words such as
bilgisayar, iletiflim, gökdelen, telefon are novel as they did not even exist in the
century papucu dama at›lmak was created. Science and technology is constantly
changing our understanding of reality. Therefore, we are in constant need of
finding new words to pair with these new meanings. Do you remember the
property of duality in language? There are two layers of linguistic organization:
sound and meaning. When a new meaning emerges, a new sound sequence is
necessary to represent this meaning. For example, when the computer was brought
into our culture as a new dimension in our lives, we felt that we had a new-born
baby to name, so we called it bilgisayar. But how do we create new words?
Change in language can be of two type: evolution and revolution. Evolution is a