Revisiting Old Turkic noun-verb pairs
Résumé
In this talk, I will show that the semantic features of the noun-verb pairs based on the bare root correspond to the so-called ergative formation, for instance qarï- “to become old” (itr.) and qarï “old” (subject adjective), or kes- “to cut” (tr.) and kes “piece, part” (object noun). The Old Turkic “ergative formation” is a semantic pattern described in ERDAL (1991), initially for suffixal derivation involving several deverbal suffixes. The term “ergative” refers to verbs and the nominals they govern. For the Old Turkic derivation, it presupposes that object nouns or adjectives correspond to transitive verbs and that the subject nouns or adjectives stem from intransitive verbs (ERDAL 1991: 169). For instance, the intransitive verb qïs- “to pressure” corresponds to the object noun qïs+ïγ “constriction”. This study aims to show that the majority of noun-verb pairs follows this pattern. A semantic analysis suggests that the ergative formation also accounts for the directionality of the derivation, toŋ- “to be frozen hard” (itr.) → toŋ “frozen” (subject adj.). As pointed out by RADLOFF (1908:8-9), this process also involves, for some forms, a distinction in vowel length, e.g. qǒm “to wave” vs. qōm “wave”. It seems that this distinction follows the ergative pattern as well. I conclude that zero-derivation was not a process affecting individual roots, but rather a consistent pattern which was part of the morphological system of Old Turkic as supported by some authors such as KAŽIBEKOV (1985).
Domaines
Linguistique
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