Investigating Raising Structures in Turkish

Oğuz, Metehan

Investigating Raising Structures in Turkish

dc.contributor.advisor	Storoshenko, Dennis Ryan
dc.contributor.author	Oğuz, Metehan
dc.contributor.committeemember	Ritter, Elizabeth Ann
dc.contributor.committeemember	O'Brien, Mary Grantham
dc.date	2021-11
dc.date.accessioned	2021-08-09T20:22:55Z
dc.date.available	2021-08-09T20:22:55Z
dc.date.issued	2021-07-28
dc.description.abstract	Even though the Turkish predicate gibi görün “seem”, which consists of a Postposition (gibi “like”) + Verb (görün “appear”) sequence, is analyzed as a raising predicate, there is a disagreement on the details of the raising operation. While Moore (1998) suggests that Copy-raising is observed with the predicate, Öztürk (2008) (among others) suggests that the operation observed is Standard Raising. Though they differ in the details of their analyses, these two approaches agree that the predicate gibi görün does not assign an external theta role. However, the current study reports that sentences such as (1) are acceptable (for some speakers) in Turkish. (1) [Ali [sen kazan-mış-sın] gibi görünüyor] Ali you win-PAST-2PS like seem Lit.: “Ali seems like you won.” Sentences like (1) violate the Theta Theory (Chomsky, 1981), if gibi görün is analyzed as a predicate that does not assign an external theta role. While the embedded subject gets its theta role from the embedded verb, the matrix subject is left without any theta role. This shows that the existing approaches to raising in Turkish are not able to account for sentences like (1), and a revision is needed. The existing approaches to Raising in Turkish also differ in their assumptions of (un-)acceptability of some Turkish sentences, which affects their analyses. To provide reliable Turkish data for the analysis, the current study collects relevant data from native Turkish speakers by conducting an experiment with a Contextual Acceptability Task. The results of the experiment suggest that sentences like (1) are acceptable for some Turkish native speakers, while it is unacceptable for others. The current study suggests (i) that the predicate gibi görün is lexicalized as a unit, disallowing most speakers to process gibi as a postposition anymore, (ii) Copy-Raising (of Landau (2011)) is observed in Turkish with sentences like (1), in which postposition gibi needs to be processed and the predicate is able to assign the P-source external theta role, and (iii) that inability of some speakers to decompose the lexicalized predicate gibi görün blocks them from applying the Copy-Raising (of Landau) and derive sentences like (1).	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Oğuz, M. (2021). Investigating Raising Structures in Turkish (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.	en_US
dc.identifier.doi	http://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/39083
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/1880/113721
dc.language.iso	eng	en_US
dc.publisher.faculty	Arts	en_US
dc.publisher.institution	University of Calgary	en
dc.rights	University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.	en_US
dc.subject	Syntax	en_US
dc.subject	Raising	en_US
dc.subject	Turkish	en_US
dc.subject	Experimental Syntax	en_US
dc.subject	Subject Raising	en_US
dc.subject	Copy-raising	en_US
dc.subject	Copy Raising	en_US
dc.subject	EPP	en_US
dc.subject	Theta Theory	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Education--Language and Literature	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Linguistics	en_US
dc.title	Investigating Raising Structures in Turkish	en_US
dc.type	master thesis	en_US
thesis.degree.discipline	Linguistics	en_US
thesis.degree.grantor	University of Calgary	en_US
thesis.degree.name	Master of Arts (MA)	en_US
ucalgary.item.requestcopy	true	en_US