Turkish affixes in Cappadocian Greek

Summary

Affix function number of borrowed affixes

Description

Information and examples are from Dawkins (1916) and Janse (2009a; 2009b), see also Gardani (2008:58–60). Cappadocian Greek has undergone heavy lexical and structural influence from Turkish, moving away from fusional and towards agglutinating structures, with some morphological borrowing. Different forms are attested in different dialects with only partial overlap. Dawkins (1916:130) explicitly notes that -lan ‘verbalizer, deriving intransitive verbs from adjectives’ and -t ‘causative’ “occasionally find their way into Greek words”.

1 verbal derivational marker

  • -lan ‘verbalizer, deriving intransitive verbs from adjectives’, recorded in the variety of Ferték, e.g. ἀστενάρλανσε ‘he became ill’

1 valency-changing suffix

  • -t ‘causative’, recorded in the variety of Ulağaç, e.g. ψοφάτσαν ‘they killed him’

2 subject agreement markers, in the varieties of Semenderé and (similarly) Sillí (Dawkins 1916:144)

  • -k ‘first plural’, e.g. κέτουμιστικ ‘we exist’
  • -inis ‘second plural’, e.g. κέτουστινις ‘they exist’

The borrowing of these forms is “probably due to the resemblance of -misti with the Turkish pluperfect in -mIs-tI to which the 1st and 2nd person plural markers -k and -nIz are added. The Semenderé forms seem to replicate the Central Anatolian Turkish pluperfect in -DI-mIș-tI, e.g. ol-du-muș-tu-k → cé-tun-mis-ti-c” (Janse 2009b).

1 element in possessive pronouns

  • -ï, a re-analyzed Turkish element used in the formation of possessive suffixes, which are accordingly all partially Turkish, e.g. 1sg -ïm (combination of Turkish possessive element -ï and the element m, which occurs in the native Greek and Turkish form), 2sg -ïs (combination of Turkish possessive element -ï and native Greek element s), 3sg -ït (combination of Turkish possessive element -ï and the native Greek element t), 1pl -ïmas (combination of Turkish possessive element -ï and native Greek mas), 2pl -ïsas (combination of Turkish possessive element -ï and native Greek sas), 3pl -ïtne (combination of Turkish possessive element -ï and -tne, which is of unclear origin) (examples from Janse 2009b).