Tackling the Augmentative Puzzle in Turkish
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3765/ptu.v5i1.4771Keywords:
adjectives, augmentative, scalar, gradability, nanosyntaxAbstract
This paper deals with the suffix -cIk in Turkish, and argues that the suffix -cIk has an augmentative meaning, as well as a diminutive meaning which has been mentioned in the literature extensively. The different meanings of the suffix -cIk are due to two different structures that I propose. While the structure of the diminutive is made of one single morpheme -cIk, that of the augmentative suffix is composed of two morphemes: -cI and -k. I offer phonotactic and morphological evidence that shows -k has its own life. I also show strict categorical selection properties for the diminutive and augmentative suffix: The augmentative one can only be attached to adjectival bases that express negative orderings. The diminutive -cIk, on the other hand, attaches to nouns. I capture this contrast using the nanosyntax model of spellout.Downloads
Published
2021-02-10
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Published by the LSA with permission of the author(s) under a CC BY 4.0 license.