Support Verb Constructions in Turkish

DOI Web Site

Bibliographic Information

Other Title
  • トルコ語における機能動詞構造について

Search this article

Abstract

Almost every natural language contains support verb constructions that are languagespecific. Their common function is to re-verbalize or verbalize nominals. As a result of nominalization, the original verb is deprived from its syntactic features, though it often retains many of its thematic roles. Agents, patients, tense and other syntactic positions of the nominalized verb can reappear with the help of a support verb. In Turkish the term support verb is only used for well-known et-, yap-, ol-, kil- and eyle- verbs, which are also called light verbs. In Turkish linguistics, most of the support verb constructions are considered to be genuine object+verb collocations or idiomatic collocations. In this paper I assume the traditional view of predicate verb of complex predicates as support verbs, and of complex predicates which have a nominal in the head position and a verb lacks its semantic content as single verbs in the lexicon. Thus, a nominal (N) and a verbal predicate (V) in the structure [Subject [N+V]] will be represented as a single verb in the speaker's mind. We present some methods to find whether a verb is in the support verb position or in its original genuine verb position. I assume that many Turkish complex predicates with a semantically empty verb exhibit support verbal features.

Journal

Details 詳細情報について

Report a problem

Back to top