مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري

Abstract :

In this study, the subject about enclitic in TurkeyTurkish has been discoursed. One of the most important features of Turkish is vowel harmony. Vowel harmony rules are the most characteristic phonetic features of Turkish. Vowel harmony which has been observed in words since Old Turkish Period is notably vigorous. This harmony appears as major vowel harmony and minor vowel harmony. Turkish is an agglutinative language. Affixes attached to words are adjusted according to the last vowel of the former word and this rule is too rigid. Exceptions of this rule are few. However, the situation is different in compounding two root words. During the unification of roots and affixes in terms of harmony the latter one is subject to the preceding one whereas in the process of composing a unique word by the unification of two root words one with a back vowel and the other with a front vowel, not the preceding or the latter one but rather the one which is dominant with respect to meaning in the compound word, assimilates the other one to itself. This phonetic change is called enclitic. Examples: O+bir öbür, Bu+ile böyle, Sekiz+on seksen, Yok+ise yoksa. As can be seen from the examples, in the unification of two words independent from each other one with a back vowel and the other one with a front vowel, the latter word does not comform with the harmony of the preceding one. However, in vowel harmony the latter word has to be subject to the preceding word in terms of backness. In Turkish when two words conjoin the one which has a stronger meaning assimilates the vowel of the other one to itself. During the unification of two words if the stronger word has back vowels compound word will have also back vowels and if the stronger word has front vowels then the compund word will have fornt vowels accordingly. In enclitic various phonetic changes ocur. Some phonetic changes like vowel elision, vowel change, vowel rounding, consonant changes etc. also ocur. The compund word which has been created by enclitic seems to be comformable to vowel harmony.