Contrastive Analysis of Temporal Converb Constructions between Turkish and Lezgian

Abstract

The aim of this contrastive study is to analyze temporal converb constructions between Turkish and Lezgian and it is a morphological analysis since it examines inflectional temporal converb constructions between two languages. The contrastive analysis involves three methodological steps: description, juxtaposition, and comparison and the analysis is based on the classifications of temporal converb constructions by Nedjalkov (1998) and Çetintaş Yıldırım (2004), namely, (i) simultaneity, (ii) anteriority and (iii) posteriority meaning relationships. The temporal converbial suffixes examined in this study are -(y)IncA (when), -DIğI zaman (when), -DIğIndA (when), -(A/I) r…-mAz (as soon as), -DIğIndAn beri (since), -DIktAn sonra (after), -mAdAn önce (before), -(y)IncAyA kadar / dek (until), -ken (while) and -DıkçA (whenever) in Turkish and -la (when), -waldi (as soon as), -namaz(di) (as soon as), -zamaz (as soon as), -daldi (before) and -daldi (until) in Lezgian. In terms of meaning relationships, the results of the study show that although Turkish and Lezgian employ same strategies in that both languages express three temporal relationships of anteriority, posteriority, and simultaneity for temporal converb constructions; the number of the suffixes and temporal meaning relationship parameters differ for these categories. In terms of morpho-syntactic relationships, the results of the study show that all converbial suffixes are added to the base verb segment in Turkish and they are attached to verb stems or participles in Lezgian. Moreover, temporal converbial suffixes may be simple and composite in both languages.