SOME OBSERVATIONS ON PERSON & NUMBER MORPHEMES IN TURKISH

The person and number morphemes in personal pronouns and nominal / verbal agreement affixes in Turkish are claimed to form portmanteau morphs in the current literature. That is to say, in several analyses, these morphemes are not represented by different affixes or zero morphs; rather, single morphs stand for both of them. For instance, the personal pronoun o(n) is referred to be “the third person singular pronoun”. Similarly, the bound morpheme /-(I)m/ is referred to be “the first person singular suffix” (Lewis 1967; Underhill 1976; Korkmaz 1992; van Schaaik 1996; Kornfilt 1997; Göksel & Kerslake 2011; Çiçekler 2016; Çakır 2022, e.g.). This analysis, however, leads to double number marking in some cases, which is rather problematic. For instance, when the plural suffix /-lAr/ is added to the third person singular pronoun o(n), these two morphs indicate both singularity and plurality. For this reason, the present study asserts that person and number morphemes do not always form portmanteau morphs in Turkish. Rather, in some cases, the person morphemes are phonologically realized while the number morphemes are added on them in the form of zero morphs. As a matter of fact, Turkish makes use of three different strategies while marking person and number: (1) forming a portmanteau morph, (2) using a zero morph and (3) suffixation. The study demonstrates how and when these strategies are applied in Turkish. The analysis presented here solves the problem of double number marking in personal pronouns and nominal / verbal agreement markers.