The Role Of –(s)I In Turkish Indefinite Nominal Compounds

This pa­per in­tends to cla­rify the dis­tinc­ti­on bet­we­en the third per­son pos­ses­si­ve suf­fix -(s)I at­tac­hed to no­uns to in­di­ca­te pos­ses­si­on and the com­po­und mar­ker, CM, -(s)I used to const­ruct le­xi­ca­li­zed no­mi­nal com­po­unds by sta­ting the­ir ba­sic se­man­tic and struc­tu­ral dif­fe­ren­ces. To de­monst­ra­te the le­xi­ca­li­zing ef­fect of the CM at­tac­hed to no­mi­nal com­po­unds, fifty na­ti­ve Tur­kish spe­akers ir­res­pec­ti­ve of age, gen­der, and edu­ca­ti­onal backg­ro­und we­re ad­mi­nis­te­red a qu­es­ti­on­na­ire. In this qu­es­ti­on­na­ire so­me no­mi­nal com­po­unds, eit­her the he­ad or the mo­di­fi­er parts of which we­re im­par­ted as blanks, we­re gi­ven to the­se sub­jects and they we­re as­ked to fill in the blanks with app­rop­ri­ate words. The aim was to find out whet­her so­me no­mi­nal com­po­unds we­re mo­re le­xi­ca­li­zed than ot­hers. The analy­sis re­ve­aled that –(s)I in no­mi­nal com­po­unds func­ti­ons as a com­po­un­ding mar­ker rat­her than in­di­ca­ting pos­ses­si­on and it has the ef­fect of le­xi­ca­li­zing the­se com­po­und struc­tu­res.