Turkish phonology

Turkish language
Alphabet Phonology Vocabulary Grammar: Copula History and reform: Ottoman Turkish Replaced loanwords
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The phonology of the Turkish language describes the set of sounds and their relationships with one another in spoken Turkish. One characteristic feature of Turkish is a system of vowel harmony that distinguishes between front and back vowels. The majority of words in Turkish adhere to a system of only having one of the two groups. Consonants are also affected, with palatal stops being present with front vowels and velar stops existing with back ones. Further details are given below.

[edit] Consonants

The phoneme /ɣ/ usually referred to as yumuşak g ("soft g"), ğ in Turkish orthography, actually represents a rather weak front-velar or palatal approximant between front vowels. It never occurs at the beginning of a word, but always follows a vowel. When word-final or preceding another consonant, it lengthens the preceding vowel.^[1]

In native Turkic words, the sounds /c/, /ɟ/ and /l/ are in complementary distribution with /k/, /g/ and /ɫ/, the former set occurring adjacent to front vowels and the latter adjacent to back vowels. The distribution of these phonemes is often unpredictable, however, in foreign borrowings and proper nouns. These phones are not distinguished in the orthography, in which both sets are written <k>, <g> and <l>.^[2]

When a vowel is added to nouns ending with postvocalic <k>, the <k> becomes <ğ> by consonant alternation. A similar alternation applies to certain loan-words ending in <p> and <t>, which become <b> and <d>, respectively, with the addition of a vowel.^[3]

[edit] Vowels

IPA chart for Turkish vowels

The vowels of the Turkish language are, in their alphabetical order, a, e, ı, i, o, ö, u, ü. There are no diphthongs in Turkish and when two vowels come together, which occurs rarely and only with loanwords or old Ottoman words, each vowel retains its individual sound.

[edit] Vowel harmony

For more details on this topic, see Vowel harmony.

The Turkish vowel system can be considered as being two-dimensional, where vowels are characterised by two features: front/back and rounded/unrounded. Vowel harmony is the principle by which a native Turkish word incorporates either exclusively back vowels (a, ı, o, u) or exclusively front vowels (e, i, ö, ü). The pattern of vowels is shown in the table below.

Grammatical affixes have "a chameleon-like quality"^[4], and obey one of the following patterns of vowel harmony:

• twofold (-e/-a):^[5] the locative suffix, for example, is -de after front vowels and -da after back vowels. The notation -de² is a convenient shorthand for this pattern.
• fourfold (-i/-ı/-ü/-u): the genitive suffix, for example, is -in or -ın after unrounded vowels (front or back respectively); and -ün or -un after the corresponding rounded vowels. The notation -in⁴ is a convenient shorthand.

The following examples, based on the copula -dir⁴ ("[it] is"), illustrate the principles of vowel harmony in practice: Türkiyedir ("it is Turkey"), kapıdır ("it is the door"), but gündür ("it is the day"), paltodur ("it is the coat"). Compound words are considered separate words with regards to vowel harmony: vowels do not have to harmonize between the constituent words of the compound (thus forms like bu+gün ("today") or baş+kent ("capital") are permissible). In addition, vowel harmony does not apply for loanwords and some invariant suffixes, such as -iyor, the conjugation suffix for the present tense; there are also a few native Turkish words that do not follow the rule, such as anne ("mother"). In such words, suffixes harmonize with the final vowel: thus annedir ("she is a mother").

[edit] Stress

Stress is usually on the last syllable.^[1] Exceptions include some suffix combinations, and loanwords (particularly from Italian and Greek) such as /ˈmasa/ ('desk'), /loˈkanta/ ('restaurant'), or /isˈcele/ ('pier'). In many proper names the stress is transferred to the syllable before last (eg /isˈtanbul/, İstanbul), although there are exceptions to this (eg /ˈankaɾa/, Ankara).

[edit] See also

• Turkish alphabet
• Turkish grammar

[edit] References and notes

1. ^ ^{a b} International Phonetic Association (1999). "Turkish", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 155. ISBN 0-521-65236-7 (hb); ISBN 0-521-63751-1 (pb). 
2. ^ Lews (2001):3-4,6.
3. ^ The <k>/<ğ> alternation does not usually apply to monosyllabic nouns. Lewis (2001):10.
4. ^ Lewis (1953):21
5. ^ For the terms twofold and fourfold, as well as the superscript notation, see Lewis (1953):21-22. He later preferred to omit the superscripts, on the grounds that "there is no need for this once the principle has been grasped" (Lewis [2001]:18).