Turkish phonology #

This file defines the segments of Turkish, its two vowel harmonies, the voicing of a suffix-initial stop, and the surface form of a suffixed word, following the reference grammar of Göksel and Kerslake.

Turkish has one vowel for each combination of [back], [round] and [high]. Fronting harmony copies [back] from the preceding vowel to a suffix vowel, and rounding harmony copies [round] to a high suffix vowel (Chapter 3). Suffix vowels are archiphonemes. The A of A-type suffixes is non-high and unrounded but unspecified for [back] (§3.2.2), and the I of I-type suffixes is high and unspecified for both features (§3.2.1). The targets of each harmony are therefore the vowels lacking its feature, and a suffix vowel specified for it, such as the o of -(I)yor, is skipped and triggers what follows (§3.4). Consonants are off both tiers, except that the palatal l of loans such as gol, which Clements and Sezer discuss, carries [−back] and fronts the suffix (§3.4). The suffix-initial D of -DI and -DA copies [voice] from the preceding segment (§6.1.2).

The phonemes are segments named by their letters, and their feature values come from the PHOIBLE chart. A vowel keeps the chart's values for the features that distinguish the eight vowels, together with [voice], which the voicing of D copies. Among consonants [back] is contrastive only on the palatal lateral, so every other consonant keeps each chart value but [back], as in Clements and Sezer's analysis, where plain consonants are unspecified for the feature and the palatals are linked to [−back]. There are two departures from the chart. Its a is central, and the grammar's a is a back vowel. The palatal l is the chart's l with [−back]. The archiphonemes A, I and D are meets, the features their alternants share.

Before -(I)yor a stem-final a or e becomes high and then harmonizes, as in anlıyor from anla- and the negative -mIyor from -mA (§8.2.2, §8.2.3.3). The surface form of a word applies that raising and then the three alternations. The spelling is phonemic, each letter writing one segment.

Main definitions #

a, e, …, y: the phonemes, in Göksel and Kerslake's phonemic spelling, so that underlying forms mix phonemes with archiphonemes, as in [A, c, A, K]; vowels and consonants are the sets of them.
A, I, D, K: the suffix archiphonemes.
fronting, rounding, voicing: the two vowel harmonies and D-voicing, as Phonology.Harmony.Systems. The suffixes they apply to are the exponent forms of Turkish.Morphotactics.
raising: the raising of a stem-final a or e before -(I)yor, as a Subregular.LocalRewrite.Rule.
surface: the surface form of an underlying word.
ofChar, ofString?, ofSegmented?: the segments that a spelled word writes, with or without its morpheme boundaries.

Main results #

subset_tur: every phoneme but a and the two laterals is a segment of PHOIBLE's Turkish inventory.
unspecified_back_iff, not_unspecified_voice: a consonant lacks [back] unless it is the palatal lateral, and every phoneme has a value for [voice], which the tier tests of fronting and voicing rely on.
naturalClass_archiphoneme: the natural class of A, I or D is its alternants.
setFeature_back_A, setFeature_voice_D: an archiphoneme with its feature filled in is one of its alternants.

Implementation notes #

The raised vowel harmonizes for rounding as well as backness, as in okşuyor from okşa-, so raising replaces the stem vowel by the archiphoneme I instead of setting [high] alone. The loss of the suffix's own I after a vowel is a matter of attachment, in Turkish.Morphotactics. The letters ç, f, ğ and j write segments outside the inventory and have no value under ofChar. The grammar's examples are derived in Studies/GokselKerslake2005.lean. The inventory is PHOIBLE 2217, whose glyphs the chart entries follow, the coronals being dental there. K is k without a value for [continuant] and not a meet, since the meet of k and ğ would lack [voice] and so be a target of voicing.

Turkish phonology #

Main definitions #

Main results #

Implementation notes #

References #

Segments #

Alternations #

Raising before -(I)yor #

Surface forms #

Spelling #