Analysis of Three Complement-Taking Predicates in Spoken Turkish: <i>bil</i>, <i>san</i>, and <i>zannet</i>

This paper presents a corpus-based synchronic investigation of three Turkish mental–cognitive verbs in the present tense: <i>san</i> ‘guess, believe’ and <i>zannet</i> ‘suppose, assume’ (in the first person) and <i>bil</i> ‘know’ (in the second person), in spoken...

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Main Author: Deniz Zeyrek
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-01-01
Series:Languages
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Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/10/2/27
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author Deniz Zeyrek
author_facet Deniz Zeyrek
author_sort Deniz Zeyrek
collection DOAJ
description This paper presents a corpus-based synchronic investigation of three Turkish mental–cognitive verbs in the present tense: <i>san</i> ‘guess, believe’ and <i>zannet</i> ‘suppose, assume’ (in the first person) and <i>bil</i> ‘know’ (in the second person), in spoken discourse. These verbs, known as complement-taking predicates (CTPs), tend to appear without clausal complements in discourse and function as idiomatic units conveying epistemic modality. This paper characterizes the distribution of occurrences of the three predicates based on frequency to determine the extent to which usage frequency has led to routinization and greater autonomy for the CTPs under investigation, showing that the clause-medial variants deserve attention, as they clearly demonstrate the parenthetical behavior, autonomy, capacity to fulfill pragmatic functions, and projective force of foreshadowing new information of the predicates.
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spelling doaj-art-36256de9ae94470083065b2f93adb0402025-08-20T03:12:05ZengMDPI AGLanguages2226-471X2025-01-011022710.3390/languages10020027Analysis of Three Complement-Taking Predicates in Spoken Turkish: <i>bil</i>, <i>san</i>, and <i>zannet</i>Deniz Zeyrek0Department of Cognitive Science, Middle East Technical University, Ankara 06800, TurkeyThis paper presents a corpus-based synchronic investigation of three Turkish mental–cognitive verbs in the present tense: <i>san</i> ‘guess, believe’ and <i>zannet</i> ‘suppose, assume’ (in the first person) and <i>bil</i> ‘know’ (in the second person), in spoken discourse. These verbs, known as complement-taking predicates (CTPs), tend to appear without clausal complements in discourse and function as idiomatic units conveying epistemic modality. This paper characterizes the distribution of occurrences of the three predicates based on frequency to determine the extent to which usage frequency has led to routinization and greater autonomy for the CTPs under investigation, showing that the clause-medial variants deserve attention, as they clearly demonstrate the parenthetical behavior, autonomy, capacity to fulfill pragmatic functions, and projective force of foreshadowing new information of the predicates.https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/10/2/27<i>san</i><i>zannet</i><i>bil</i>complement-taking predicatesTurkish
spellingShingle Deniz Zeyrek
Analysis of Three Complement-Taking Predicates in Spoken Turkish: <i>bil</i>, <i>san</i>, and <i>zannet</i>
Languages
<i>san</i>
<i>zannet</i>
<i>bil</i>
complement-taking predicates
Turkish
title Analysis of Three Complement-Taking Predicates in Spoken Turkish: <i>bil</i>, <i>san</i>, and <i>zannet</i>
title_full Analysis of Three Complement-Taking Predicates in Spoken Turkish: <i>bil</i>, <i>san</i>, and <i>zannet</i>
title_fullStr Analysis of Three Complement-Taking Predicates in Spoken Turkish: <i>bil</i>, <i>san</i>, and <i>zannet</i>
title_full_unstemmed Analysis of Three Complement-Taking Predicates in Spoken Turkish: <i>bil</i>, <i>san</i>, and <i>zannet</i>
title_short Analysis of Three Complement-Taking Predicates in Spoken Turkish: <i>bil</i>, <i>san</i>, and <i>zannet</i>
title_sort analysis of three complement taking predicates in spoken turkish i bil i i san i and i zannet i
topic <i>san</i>
<i>zannet</i>
<i>bil</i>
complement-taking predicates
Turkish
url https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/10/2/27
work_keys_str_mv AT denizzeyrek analysisofthreecomplementtakingpredicatesinspokenturkishibiliisaniandizanneti