THE FOUNDATIONS OF TURKISH WORD FORMATION: A SEMANTIC APPROACH

Аннотация

This paper investigates the foundational principles of Turkish word formation through a semantic lens. Turkish, as an agglutinative language, employs a rich system of affixation to generate words and express grammatical relationships. This study explores how semantic relations govern the morphological processes involved in creating new lexical items, emphasizing the interplay between meaning and structure. By examining derivational and inflectional morphology, compounding, and the role of semantics in affix selection, this research aims to provide a nuanced understanding of Turkish morphology. The analysis is based on descriptive data from standard Turkish and theoretical insights from semantic morphology and agglutinative language studies. The findings highlight the centrality of semantic coherence in affixation and word formation, contributing to broader linguistic theories onmorphology and semantics. Keywords:Semantic lens, affixation, inflectional/derivational morphology, compounding and semanticcoherence. Introduction. Word formation is a fundamental process in all languages, enabling speakers to expandtheir lexicon and communicate new ideas effectively. In agglutinativelanguages such as Turkish, word formation involves the systematic addition of affixes to roots, where each affix typically encodes a single grammatical or semantic function (Lewis, 2000). Unlike fusional languages, the semantic transparency in Turkish morphology offers a unique opportunity to study the relationship between form and meaning. This paper focuses on the semantic underpinnings of Turkish word formation. By adopting a semantic approach, it examines how meanings guide the selection and combination of morphological elements, shaping the structure of new words. The significance of this research lies in its potential to enhance our understanding of how meaning and morphology interact in agglutinative languages, which has implications for theoretical linguistics,language teaching, and natural language processing Turkish Morphology and Word Formation: Turkish is classified as an agglutinative language, characterized by thelinear addition ofaffixes that each express adistinct grammatical or semantic meaning (Göksel & Kerslake, 2005). The morphological system divides into inflection, which marks grammatical categories like tense and case, and derivation, which creates new lexical items (Hawkins, 1991). Studies by Lewis (2000) and Kornfilt (1997) provide comprehensive descriptions of Turkish affixation, highlighting its productivity and regularity. Semantic morphology studies the meaning of morphological processes and how semantics influences the formation and interpretation of words (Dressler, 1985; Booij, 2010). In Turkish, the semantic transparency of affixes means that word formation can be systematically analyzed based on semantic functions such as causation, agency, negation, and plurality (Aksu- Koç,1988). page1581 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ISSN:2692-5206,ImpactFactor:12,23 AmericanAcademicpublishers,volume05,issue06,2025 Journal: https://www.academicpublishers.org/journals/index.php/ijai Semantic Approaches to Turkish Word Formation: Several scholars have emphasized the role of semantics in Turkish morphology. For example, Kerslake (1997) examines how semantic roles influence derivational suffixes, while Johanson (1998) discusses semantic constraints in compounding. Semantic approaches contribute to understanding not just the structural but also thefunctional motivations behind morphological patterns. Methodology. This research employs a qualitative approach grounded in semantic and morphological analysis of Turkish word formation patterns. Data is drawn primarily from standard Turkish corpora, dictionaries, and descriptive grammars. Selected examples illustrate key processes including affixation, compounding, and conversion. The semantic functions of affixes are analyzed in terms of their contribution to word meaning and structure. Identifying common Turkish affixes and their semantic functions. Analyzing derivational and inflectional processes through semantic categories. Examining compounding patterns with a focus onsemanticrelations between constituents. Results and Discussion. Turkish affixes are semantically motivated morphemes that modify the root's meaning or grammatical function. For instance, the causative suffix "-dir" adds a causative meaning ("to make/do something"), as in yat "to lie down" → yat-dır- "to make lie down" (Lewis, 2000). The semantic clarity of affixes facilitates compositional meaning, where the overall meaning ofa word results predictably from themeanings of itsparts (Aksu-Koç, 1988). This contrasts with fusional languages where morphemes often encode multiplesemanticfeatures simultaneously. Derivational Morphology:SemanticRoles and Functions Derivational affixes in Turkish denote semantic categories such as agency (-ci), instrumentality (-mak), negation (-me), and reciprocit