The transformation activity of the logic signed

THE TRANSFORMATION ACTIVITIY OF THE LOGIC

IN TURKISH

YÜKSEL GÖKNEL

2013

The Transformation Activity of the Logic in Turkish

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THE TRANSFORMATION ACTIVITY OF THE LOGİC and

THE NOMINAL PHRASES IN TURKISH

It is considered that the mind has a logical system which manages three ra-

tional storages to fill to produce a sentence. These storeges are out of order

before someone is born. When he begins learning his native language,

these orderless storages are arranged in a sequence according to one's

native language. For an English speaking person his logical sequence is

"subject + verb + object", but for a Turkish spaking person this sequence is

"(subject) + object + verb-personal suffix". For instance:

English sequence: I love you. subj verb object

Turkish sequence: (Ben) sen-i seviyor-um. subj object verb-personal suffix

In Turkish, using "ben", "sen", "o", "biz", "siz", "onlar" pronouns at the be-

ginning of a sentence is optional. These pronouns are only used when they

are stressed. However, using the personal allomorphs representing these

pronouns at the ends of the sentences is a grammatical rule. Therefore,

these pronouns are showed in parentheses.

However, although the third person singular has the pronoun "o", which

means "he", "she", or "it", the sentences containing this pronoun does not

need a personal suffix representing "o" pronoun. A sentence without a

personal suffix at the end of a sentence means that the sentence is the

third person singular. For instance the followig two Turkish sentences are

identical:

(O) sen-i seviyor. He, she, or it loves you.

Sen-i seviyor. He, she, or it loves you.

Although the sentenes given above are all simple sentences, the human

mind uses the same flexible subject, verb, object storages to produce all

the sentences in a language whether they are long or short.

1a: All pronouns can be used as subjects such as: "ben", "sen", "o", "biz",

"siz", "o/n/-lar". (I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they)

1b: All pronouns can be used as objects such as "ben-i", "sen-i", "o-/n/u",

"biz-i", "siz-i", "o/n/-lar-ı" (me, you, him, her, it, us, you, them)

2a: All proper nouns can be used as subjects such as: Ahmet, Hasan,

Jack, Ayşe, Mary. (English: (Ahmet, Hasan, Jack, Ayşe, Mary.)

2b: All proper nouns can be used as objects such as: Ahmet-i, Hasan-ı,

Jak-i, Ayşe-/y/i, Mary-/y/i. (English: Ahmet, Hasan, Jack, Ayşe, Mary.):


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Ahmet Hasan-ı gördü. Ahmet saw Hasan. Hasan Ahmet-i buldu. Hasan

found Ahmet.

3a: All common nouns can be used as subjects such as:

Turkish: Zil çalıyor. Martılar uçuyor. Güneş doğu-dan doğar. Polis hırsız-ı

yakaladı. English: The bell is ringing. The seagulls are flying. The sun rises

in the east. The police caught the thief.

As it is seen, when the common nouns are used as subjests in Turkish,

they are considered defined and used without definite articles. In English,

however, they are all used with the definite article "the".

If indefinite nouns are used as subjects, or objects, they are used like

indefinite nouns in English:.

'Bir adam sen-i kapı-da bekliyor. A man is waiting for you at the door.

Bazı kuşlar sonbahar-da güney-e göç ederler. Some birds migrate to south

in autumn.

Bahçede bir saat buldum. I found a watch in the garden.

Ayşe bir kompozisyon yazıyor. Ayş is writing a composition.

All infinitives, which are nominals, are of four kinds:

4a: The verbs that are suffixed by ♫ [mek, mak] allomorphs.

4b: The verbs that are suffixed by ♫ [me, ma] allomorphs.

4c: The verbs that are suffixed by ♫ [iş, ış, üş, uş, eş, aş] allomorphs.

4d: The verbs that are suffıxed by ♫ [dik, dık, dük, duk, tik, tık, tük, tuk].

4aa: The [mek, mak] infinitives can be used as subjects in the sentences

using "be" (is, are, was were, etc) verbs:

Bekle-mek sıkıcıdır. Waiting is boring, Yürü-mek sağlıklıdır. Walking is

healthful. Bütün gün televizyon izle-mek zaman kaybıdır. Watching tele-

vision all day long is a vaste of time. 4ab: The ♫ [mek, mak] infinitives can be used as the objects of the verb

"iste":

Jack Türkçe öğren-mek istiyor. Jack wants to learn Turkish.

Fatma balık kızart-mak istemiyor. Fatma doesn't want to fry fish.

Uyu-mak istiyorum. I want to sleep.

4ac: The [mek, mak] infinitives can be used before the postposition "için":

Herkes ben-i gör-mek için ayağa kalktı. Everybody stood up to see me.


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Öğretmen ben-i daha iyi gör-mek için gözlüklerini taktı. The teacher put on

her glasses to see me better. Bir spor araba al-mak için para biriktiriyor.

She is saving money to buy a sports car. Sen-i ikna et-mek için ne yapma-

lıyım? What should I do to convince you?

4ba: The [me, ma] infinitives can be used in noun compounds as subjects:

Mary-/n/in ağla-ma-/s/ hepimiz-i üzdü. Mary's crying made us sorry. (noun compound) subj (NP) obj (NP) verb

subject (NP) predicate (VP)

Ahmet'in okul-a geç gel-me-/s/i öğretmen-i kızdırdı. (noun compound) subject (NP) object (NP) verb subject (NP) predicate (VP)

Ahmet's coming to school late made the teacher angry.

4bb: The [me, me] infinitives can be used in noun compounds as objects:

(Ben-im) baba-am (ben-im) futbol oyna-ma-am-ı istemiyor. (noun compound) subj (nound compound-ı) object |

NP NP verb

VP

Definite noun compounds in Turkish are suffixed by possessor personal

allomorphs both at the possessor and the possessed parts of a noun

compound. As these two possessor personal allomorphs bear the same

meaning, the possessor pronouns in the possessor parts of a noun com-

pound could be ignored because the allomorphs attached to the possessed

parts bear the same meaning as the allomorphs attached to the possessor

parts of a compound. Namely, "baba-am" means, "ben-im baba-am", and

"futbol oyna-ma-am" means, "ben-im futbol oyna-ma-am". The sentence

above is generally said and written as follows:

Baba-am futbol oynama-am-ı istemiyor. noun comp subj noun compound obj |

NP NP verb

VP

(Biz) maç-ın bit-me-/s/i-/n/i bekledik. We waited until the match ended. subj (noun compound) obj-/n/i verb

NP VP

4ca: The ♫ [iş, ış, üş, uş, es, aş] infinitives can be used in noun compouns

in a limited number in certain expressions:

(Ben-im) dön-üş-üm muhteşem olacak. My return will be spectacular. noun compound (subj) adjective verb (be)

subject (NP) predicate (VP)


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Oyuncular maç-ın bit-iş düdüğü-/n/ü bekledi.

subject noun compound-/n/ü | NP object (NP) verb

(predicate) VP

The players waited until the final whistle of the match.

4da: The ♫ [dik, dık, dük, duk, tik, tık, tük, tuk] infinitives can be used in

noun compounds:

"(ben-im) git-tik-im" (be*nim / git*ti*ğim), "(sen-in) git-tik-in" (se*nin / git*ti*-

ğin), "(o-/n/un) git-tik-i" (o*nun / git*ti*ği), "(biz-im) git-tik-im.iz" (bi*zim / git*ti*-

ği*miz), "(siz-in) git-tik-in.iz" (si*zin / git*ti*ği*niz), "o/n/-lar-ın git-tik-i" (on*la*-

rın / git*ti*ği)

The noun compounds above can be used as objects:

(Ben) (o-/n/un) işit-tik-i-/n/i sanmıyorum. I don't think that he heard. subj noun compound-i-/n/i |

NP (object) NP verb

(predicate ) VP

The same noun compounds can also be used as determiners:

Ben-im gör-dük-üm araba beyazdı. The car that I saw was white. (noun compound) noun | determined determiner verb

determiner determined | subject predicate

subject predicate NP VP

NP VP

Detailed examples are given in the transformational section.

ADVERBS AND ADVERBIALS

A number of adverbs and adverbials may additionally take place in a logical

simple sentence. These adverbs or adverbials give further information about

the time, pleace, reason, manner, frequency, purpose, etc. of an action or

being. For instance:

Ahmet her zaman okul-a geç gelir, Ahmet always comes to school late. subj adverbial adverbial adverb verb subj adverb verb adverbial adv

NP (predicate) VP NP (predicate) VP

Kızlar sınıf-a neşe-/y/le girdi. The girls entered the class cheerfully. subj adverbial adverbial verb subj verb object adverbial

NP (predicate) VP NP (predicate) VP

Fatma kapı-/y/ı aç-ın.ca bir iskelet gördü. subj obj of "aç" adverbial | |

NP adverbial of time obj of "gör" verb

VP


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Fatma saw a skeleton when she opened the door. subj verb object adverbial clause of time

NP (predicate) VP

THE TRANSFORMATION ACTIVITY OF THE LOGIC

The human mind can logically transform a simple sentence into a learned

nominal phrase, an adverbial phrase or clause in order to insert them in

the "subject + predicate", or "subject + verb + object" storages in which

all sentences take form.

Thought and language are mental faculties that are independent of one an-

other, but they act interdependently. One stores morphemes, which are the

only language units loaded with meaning, into his memory out of sequence.

However, when the time comes to produce a sentence, the mind searches

through its memory to find the most suitable morphemes matching his sets

of thought, and organizes them in a sequence He divides his thought into two logical parts called subject and predicate

(Nominal Phrase "NP", and Verbal Phrase "VP"). To understand how these

two logical parts are expressed in sign language, let us take an imaginary

journey to the long past to fancy how our ancestors used "NP + VP" basic

sentence producing device.

As human beings did not know how to communicate in words on those days,

perhaps one of them pointed to some birds, and imitated a bird fluttering its

wings trying to mean "Birds fly" or "The birds are flying"

In the above imaginary sentences, there are two main parts,"birds", and "fly"

(subject and predicate), which Chomsky calls them "NP + VP". From then

on, throughout centuries, human beings have been busy inserting what they

want to say into these two basic sentence components.

The human intellect is so sklllful that it can logically transform simple

sentences into learned nominal phrases to fit them into the "NP" segment

of the "NP + VP" sentence-prodcing pattern. It manages this activity in such

a way that although their forms are transformed into different structures,

these structures stay loaded with the same meaning in different inflectional

(grammatical) patterns. Consider the following: .

1. The birds were flying. ↻ the birds that were flying NP VP NP

2. The birds were flying. ↻ that the birds were flying NP VP NP


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3. Birds eat insects. ↻ the birds that eat insects NP VP NP

4. Birds eat insects. ↻ that birds eat insects NP VP NP

5. Birds eat insects. ↻ the insects that the birds eat NP VP NP

6. Roses are beautiful. ↻ the roses that are beautiful ↻ the beautiful roses NP VP NP NP

7. Roses are beautiful. ↻ that roses are beautiful NP VP NP

The human mind can insert the nominalized phrases above into the "NP"

segment of the phrase structure rules. The "VP" segment contains either an

intransitive verb "Vi", which does not need an object, or a transitive verb "Vt"

that needs a "NP" (an object). Therefore, a "NP + VP" base sentence pro-

ducing logical pattern may be rewritten either as "NP + Vi" or "NP + Vt + NP"

for an English speaking person. However, a person speaking Turkish uses a

different sequence "NP + NP + Vt" in the "VP" segment of the "NP + VP"

basic sentence-producing pattern. Moreover, adverbs and adverbials should

also be included in a Verbal Phrase (predicate) because their function is to

add some significant concepts to verbs.

The following example sentences show how transformed nominalized sen-

tences above are used as nominal phrases in the "NP + VP" logical pattern:

1. I saw the birds that were flying above my head NP V NP adverbial

VP

2. My boss said that the birds were flying in my head. NP V NP adverbial

VP

3. The birds that eat insects are useful. NP VP

4. Everybody knows that birds eat insects. NP V NP

VP

5. The insects that the birds eat are harmful. NP VP

6. The roases that are beautiful smell sweet. NP VP

The beautiful roses smell sweet. NP VP

7. Everybody thinks that roses are beautiful. NP V NP


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In general, as soon as thought is materialized in morphemes in a language,

they are seperated into words, and placed into the linear logical phrase

structure sequence. While this process is going on, the phonological rules of

the language simultaneously divide the words into syllables and harmonıze

them in agreement with the general sound system of the language.

The logical, morphemic, and oral (phonological) sequences behave inde-

pendantly of one another in coordination to produce sentences.

A morpheme that changes the meaning of a root or stem is called a deriva-

tional morpheme (yapım eki); the other one, which does not change the

meaning of a stem, is called an inflectional morpheme (çekim eki). Both

the derivational and inflectional morphemes are bound morphemes.

Some morphemes (suffixes in Turkish) have different pronunciation variants

that bear the same meaning as their morphemes. For instance, in English,

when the plural [S] morpheme is attached to the noun “book”, it is pro-

nounced as /s/; in “boy-s” as /z/; and in “box-es” as /iz/. As they are the dif-

ferent pronunciation variants of the same morpheme [S], they are named as

the allomorphs of the morpheme [S].

Turkish sound system produce a lot more morphemes than English. This is

because bound morphemes go through some vowel and consonant

changes due to the vowel and consonant harmony rules of the Turkish lan-

guage when they are attached to roots or stems, or to one another, and this

process causes different allomorphs to arise. All the allomorphs of a certain

morpheme carry the same meaning vocalizing differently, and therefore they

do not change the meaning of the morphemes. The Turkish sound system

functions independently of the Turkish morphemic system.

FORM AND FUNCTION IN LANGUAGES

Form and function are different notions in languages. Form is the physical

structure of a language unit, but function is the syntactic role of the same

unit in a sentence.

We can see this difference between the two notions in the following English

and Turkish sentences:

Jane is dancing on the table:

“On the table” is a prepositional phrase. Its form (structure) is preposi-

tional, but its function is adverbial because it shows where the verb

“dancing” is taking place.

The books on the table are mine:


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In this sentence, “on the table” is also a prepositional phrase, but its func-

tion is determiner because it answers the question “Which books?”, so it is

a determiner implied by the determiner “the”.

Jack is running to school:

“To school” is structurally a prepositional phrase, but its function is

adverbial because it shows the direction of the action “running".

I read the books that I borrowed from the library:

In this sentence, “that I borrowed from the library” is a language unit that

defines “the books”, and therefore it is a determiner. However, when we

consider “the books that I borrowed from a library”, we see that it

functions in a sentence as a noun. Therefore, it is a Nominal Phrase

transformed from the simple sentence “I borrowed some books from the

library”. When we use the transformed phrase above as an object, we get

the sentence: “I read the books that I borrowed from the library”. By the way,

it is necessary to remember that all subjects and objects are nouns whether

they contain only one word such as (you), two words (the book, Jack’s

book), or more than two words (the books on the table, or the books that

I borrowed and read). Such nominal phrases are infinite. For instance, “the

fish that Jack caught that Mr. Brown cleaned that Mrs. Brown fried that

Jane ate…” is a nominal phrase treated in a sentence as a single noun.

Besides the Nominal Phrase above, there is another language unit called

“noun compound”, which may be made up of two or more nouns such as

“the lights of the street”, “the traffic lights”, or “the color of the walls

of my room”. Such compounds whether they are made up of two or more

nouns (infinite), are treated as single nouns (Nominal Phrases) in sentences.

✫✫✫

In Turkish, the [E], [DE], [DEN] and [LE] morphemes (in fact their allomorphs

♫ [e,a], [de, da, te, ta], [den, dan, ten, tan], [le, la]) are attached to nouns,

pronouns or infinitives. When these nouns, pronouns, or infinitives are used

without these allomorphs, they may be used as subjects, or objects in

sentences. These nouns are structurally and syntactically nouns.

However, when these nouns, pronouns or infinitives are attached to the

allomorphs above, they are structurally “noun-e”, “noun-de”, “noun-den” and

“noun-le” units (In Turkish, ismin “e”, “de” and “den” hali), which syntactically

function as adverbs and called adverbials in sentences:


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Ben bir kitap aldım. I bought a book subj det + noun | subj | det + noun

NP (obj) NP verb NP verb object

VP VP

In the sentence above, “Ben” and “kitap” are structurally and syntactically

nouns. In the following sentences, however, the noun roots attached to [E],

[DE], [DEN], or [LE] morphemes undertake the role of adverbs in

sentences.

Adverbial means a word or words that function as an adverb.

Jack okul-a gitti. Jack went to school. noun noun-a V noun V prep + noun

subj adverbial prep phrase

adverbial

Jack okul-da-(dır). Jack is at school. noun noun-da V noun V prep + noun subj adverbial subj prep phrrase adverbial Jack okul-dan ev-e otobüs-le geldi. noun noun-dan noun-e noun-le V subj adverbial adverbial adverbial

Jack came home from school by bus noun V noun prep + noun prep + noun subj adverb prep phrase prep phrase adverbial adverbial

The other transformed nouns and adverbs could be found in the transforma-

tion section.

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The transformation activity of the logic signed