Gradient characteristics of the unaccusative/unergative distinction in Turkish : an experimental investigation

Download
2005
Acartürk, Cengiz
This thesis investigates the gradient behaviour of monadic intransitive verb classes in Turkish, under an aspectual classification of the unaccusative/unergative verb types, namely The Split Intransitivity Hierarchy. This Hierarchy claims that intransitive verb types are subject to gradient acceptability in certain syntactic constructions. The methods used in judgment elicitation studies in psychophysics, such as the magnitude estimation technique have recently been adapted to be used in capturing gradient linguistic data. Also, the practical benefits of the Internet directed researchers to design and conduct web-based experiments for linguistic data elicitation. Research on Human Computer Interaction offers suggestions for the design of more usable user interfaces. Considering these developments, in this thesis, a web based experiment interface has been designed as an extension to the magnitude estimation technique to elicit acceptability judgments on two syntactic constructions, i.e. the -mIs participle (the unaccusative diagnostic) and impersonal passivization (the unergative diagnostic) for different verb types on the Split Intransitivity Hierarchy. The experiment was conducted on the Internet. The results show that in the two diagnostics, the verb types receive categorical or indeterminate acceptability judgments, which allows us to specify the core or peripheral status of the verbs. Within the classes we have examined, change of state verbs constitute the core unaccusative verbs, and controlled (motional and non-motional) process verbs constitute the core unergative verbs. Stative verbs and uncontrolled process verbs are peripheral unaccusatives and unergatives, respectively. Change of location verbs (with an animate subject) are close to the unergative end.

Suggestions

Structural priming in Turkish genitive-possessive constructions
Bahadır, Gözde; Hohenberger, Annette Edeltraud; Zeyrek Bozşahin, Deniz; Department of Cognitive Sciences (2012)
This study addresses the question of the mental representation and processing of language by investigating “structural priming” in Turkish Genitive-Possessive (GEN-POSS) constructions. Structural priming is the facilitating effect of having already experienced a structural form on its subsequent processing. We investigate this phenomenon on a construction pair in Turkish, which shares the same external GEN-POSS morpho-syntactic template despite having distinct grammatical categories. The structures under sc...
The Second language processing of nominal compounds: a masked priming study
Çelikkol Berk, Nurten; Kırkıcı, Bilal; Department of English Language Teaching (2018)
The primary purpose of the present study was to understand the workings of the cognitive mechanisms underlying L2 morphological processing, and more particularly, to explore how noun-noun compounds in L2 English are processed by native speakers of Turkish in the earliest stages of word recognition. Furthermore, the study investigated the role of constituent morphemes in the processing of compound words and examined whether or not a compound word primes its first and second constituents equally. The final pu...
The Effects of cross-morphemic letter transpositions on morphological processing in turkish: a psycholinguistic investigation
Çağlar, Ozan Can; Kırkıcı, Bilal; Department of English Language Teaching (2019)
This study investigates whether Turkish native speakers have access to semantic information in the course of morphological decomposition at the early stages of visual word recognition. Two masked priming experiments were conducted to test the effects of semantic transparency on the recognition of target words. The main prime conditions of the study were the following: (a) semantically transparent (e.g., çizim-ÇİZ, Eng. drawing-DRAW), (b) semantically opaque (e.g., tuzak-TUZ; Eng. trap-SALT), and (c) form ov...
Grammar and information : a study of Turkish indefinites
Özge, Umut; Bozşahin, Hüseyin Cem; Department of Cognitive Sciences (2010)
Turkish, along with many other languages, marks its direct objects in two distinct ways: overt accusative marking (Acc) versus no marking (∅). The research on the grammar and interpretation of Turkish indefinite descriptions has focused on the effects of this distinc- tion in case-marking on the interpretation of indefinite noun phrases. The overt accusative marker has been associated with discourse-linking (Nilsson 1985; Enç 1991; Zidani-Eroğlu 1997), specificity (von Heusinger 2002; von Heusinger and Kornfilt...
Discovering the discourse role of converbs in Turkish discourse
Acar, Ahmet Faruk; Zeyrek Bozşahin, Deniz; Department of Cognitive Sciences (2014)
The subordinate verb forms that occur in non-finite adverbial clauses are called converbs (Göksel & Kerslake , 2005). In Turkish, converbs can be discourse connectives as well as acting as the complement of a factive verb or an adverbial. We morphologically analyzed 15 converbs in Turkish Discourse Bank to find out possible morpho-syntactic features in order to distinguish different roles of these converbs. The aim of the study is to find out all possible roles of the converbs and the source of ambiguities ...
Citation Formats
C. Acartürk, “Gradient characteristics of the unaccusative/unergative distinction in Turkish : an experimental investigation,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2005.