THE MORPHOLOGICAL FUNCTION OF AFFIXES IN UZBEK AND TURKISH LANGUAGES

Аннотация

This article provides a comparative morphological analysis of affixes in the Uzbek and Turkish languages, focusing on their grammatical, derivational, and syntactic functions. As members of the Turkic language family, both Uzbek and Turkish exhibit agglutinative morphological structures, wherein affixes serve as the primary means of expressing grammatical relationships and word formation. The study explores similarities and differences in affix usage, productivity, and semantic transparency. It also examines how affixes reflect historical language development and contemporary linguistic evolution. The research contributes to broader understanding of Turkic linguistics and morphological typology through detailed analysis of affixation mechanisms in both languages. Keywords affixation, Uzbek language, Turkish language, morphology, agglutinative structure, grammatical function, derivational affixes, typology Affixation lies at the heart of Turkic morphological structure, functioning as the core mechanism for both grammatical inflection and word derivation. In Uzbek and Turkish, two closely related yet distinct members of the Turkic family, affixes play an essential role in forming verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs. Their agglutinative nature allows for complex syntactic constructions through the linear addition of multiple affixes to a single root, each carrying distinct grammatical or lexical meaning. However, despite genetic proximity and typological alignment, Uzbek and Turkish affix systems demonstrate both parallelisms and divergences shaped by phonological, historical, and sociolinguistic factors. The Uzbek language, part of the southeastern (Karluk) branch of Turkic languages, and Turkish, belonging to the southwestern (Oghuz) branch, both exhibit agglutination, yet their affix inventories and morphological patterns reflect different developmental paths. In both languages, affixes may be classified into inflectional and derivational categories. Inflectional affixes in 101 MODELS AND METHODS IN MODERN SCIENCE International scientific-online conference Uzbek and Turkish are used to indicate case, person, number, tense, aspect, mood, and voice, while derivational affixes generate new lexical items or alter grammatical categories. In terms of case marking, both languages employ suffixes rather than prepositions. For example, the Uzbek -ni (accusative) and Turkish -i/-ı/-u/-ü serve similar syntactic roles: Uzbek: kitobni o‘qidim (I read the book) Turkish: kitabı okudum (I read the book) These suffixes follow vowel harmony rules—more extensively in Turkish— demonstrating one of the core morphological strategies common to both languages. Turkish maintains strict vowel harmony in affixation, where suffix vowels adjust according to front/back and rounded/unrounded distinctions. Uzbek, on the other hand, has partially lost vowel harmony, especially in its standard literary form influenced by Persian and Russian, though traces remain in dialectal usage. In personal agreement markers, both languages use person-number suffixes attached to verbs. Compare: Uzbek: Men boraman (I will go) → -man (1st person singular) Turkish: Ben gideceğim (I will go) → -ceğim or -acağım (future + 1st person singular) The Turkish future tense marker -ecek/-acak combines with the personal suffix, whereas Uzbek uses a synthetic form with root modifications and personal endings. The morphological layering in Turkish tends to be more transparent and regular, whereas Uzbek exhibits more syncretism and allomorphic variation, especially in colloquial speech. In voice affixation, the passive, causative, and reciprocal affixes demonstrate high productivity in both languages. The causative suffixes -tir/-dir in Uzbek and -tir/-dir/-t/-d in Turkish serve nearly identical functions: Uzbek: o‘qimoq (to read) → o‘qitmoq (to make/read) Turkish: okumak → okutmak However, morphophonemic changes in Turkish are more rule-governed due to its extensive vowel and consonant harmony systems. Additionally, Turkish allows for recursive affixation more systematically, where causative- passive combinations can appear in nested structures, such as: okutulmak (to be made to be read) Another significant area of comparison is derivational affixation, where both languages employ a rich set of suffixes to form new words from base stems. 102 MODELS AND METHODS IN MODERN SCIENCE International scientific-online conference For example, nominalizers like -chi in Uzbek and -ci/-cı in Turkish produce agent nouns: Uzbek: o‘qituvchi (teacher) Turkish: öğretici (instructor) While both affixes function similarly, Uzbek often uses Persian-derived suffixes such as -dor, -noma, or -goh (e.g., kitobxona – library), which have no direct equivalents in Turkish. Turkish, in contrast, integrates more productive use of native suffixes like -lik/-lık, -siz, and -li, maintaining higher morphological regularity and transparency. The phenomenon of suffix stacking, a hallmark of agglutinati