The Turkish Nominal Phrase in Spoken Discourse

Based on a corpus of spoken Standard Turkish, and looking from an explicitly discourse-oriented angle, the study explores certain phenomena related to the Turkish nominal phrase. Under close investigation are the use of the indefinite article BIR and the classifier TANE in the introduction of referents in the discourse, the topic-related function of both plural agreement between subject and verb and the post-predicate position in the sentence, as well as the use of the possessive suffix in the establishment of anaphoric relationships. In studying these phenomena, the author tries to evaluate both the explanatory power of pragmatic functions and the interplay between semantic and pragmatic functions within the "multi-motivatedness" of grammar. Concentrating on the spoken language, the book highlights a much-neglected field in Turkish Linguistics, while at the same time contributing to the discourse-oriented discussion within General Linguistics.