THE ISSUE OF HOMOGRAPHY AND LOST WORDS IN HISTORICAL TEXTS

This paper discusses the meaning and origin of the Turkish verb uyaḳ-found in a murabba‘-ı mütekerrir (repeating quatrain) of Burdurlu Fedaî Dede, a 16th century Sufi poet. To this end, a search was made in the Tarama Sözlüğü, which suggests the results “set, drop, go down (star)” for the verb uyaḳmaḳ. However, as these results do not fit the poem in question given the context, it was found out that the poet felt the need to use a verb meaning either “rise” or “shine”. Considering the fact that it would not be possible for the same verb to carry two opposite meanings at the same time, it was revealed, through supporting evidence, that the two verbs had actually different origins and became homographic, and perhaps homophonic over time.