The Emphatic Marker in Turkish: Two Readings

Abstract

This paper aims to show that the anaphor kendi in Turkish has two distinct readings depending on when it’s functioning as an emphatic marker, which hasn’t been noted in the previous literature. I propose that it has two distinct readings based on their surface sentential positions and diagnostics from Ahn (2010). Moreover, I show that the event modifying a variety of the emphatic marker in Turkish differs from the same type of emphatic marker in English by showing that (i) it allows theme/patient referents, and the DP modifying variety (ii) may be able to survive without obligatory stress. In addition, I document further observations and nuances regarding the morphological marking of the two varieties of the emphatic marker in Turkish as preliminary discussion points.