On the (Non)-Use of Plural Non-Head Nouns in Turkish Nominal Compounding

(Psycho)linguistic studies conducted in various languages have shown that participants refrain from using regular plural nouns as non-head nouns within nominal compounds but do make use of singular as well as plural irregular nouns as non-heads. According to proponents of the “Words- and-Rule...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Bilal Kırkıcı
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Dilbilim Derneği (The Linguistics Association) 2009-07-01
Series:Dilbilim Araştırmaları Dergisi
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Online Access:http://dad.boun.edu.tr/download/article-file/224695
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Summary:(Psycho)linguistic studies conducted in various languages have shown that participants refrain from using regular plural nouns as non-head nouns within nominal compounds but do make use of singular as well as plural irregular nouns as non-heads. According to proponents of the “Words- and-Rules” theory, this finding is an unambiguous reflection of the regular- irregular distinction that they presume and clear evidence for the mental model that they support. Since irregular nouns do not exist in Turkish, the language constitutes a special case for the “Words-and-Rules” theory. In this study, it has been investigated whether native speakers of Turkish employ plural nouns as non-heads within noun-noun compounds to examine the validity of the “Words-and-Rules” theory for Turkish. In spite of the fact that the results obtained from a corpus-analysis and a paper and pencil experiment yielded findings that did not perfectly overlap, it was found that Turkish native speakers, like native speakers of other languages investigated before (such as English and German), overall preferred plural nouns to a lesser extent than they did singular nouns as non-heads in nominal compounds.
ISSN:1300-8552
2587-0939