A Morpho-pragmatic Classification of Turkish TAM Markers

Abstract

This article reviews eight TAM (Tense/Aspect/Mood) markers of Turkish regarding their pragmatic functions. Its main argument is that three aspectuo-temporal situations and nominal predication present an environment where multiple markers compete for expression and that the choice of marker depends on pragmatics. Perfective past viewpoint has four competing markers:-mIştI,-DI,-mIş and-mIştIr.-mIştI and-DI contrast in that-mIştI marks shared knowledge while-DI marks the speaker’s epistemic primacy.-mIş, on the other hand, only indicates that the speaker does not hold epistemic primacy. It is void of any assumptions regarding the addressee’s epistemic position.-mIştIr is the marker of choice if the speaker and the speech community share the knowledge of the past event and impose primacy over the addressee. Such a pragmatic classification allows us to treat the other markers competing for continuous aspect, iterative aspect, and nominal predication. These are-Ar and-yor with verbal predicates, and-DIr and-? with nominal predicates. © 2023 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.