Grammatical Homonymy Of Modern Crimean Tatar Language

Abstract

The paper considers grammatical homonyms formed as a result of substantivization, adjectivization, adverbialization of the transition of independent words into structural words, primary homonyms using the material of the modern Crimean Tatar language. There are grammatical homonyms formed by conversion in the Crimean Tatar language. In linguistics, conversion is analyzed as one of the methods of word formation, which is widespread and very productive. Despite its simplicity, conversion has one important problem – the definition in a pair of words formed by conversion, the original and derived words. The main regularity of the homonymity of words of different parts of speech is that the transition of words from one part of speech to another is associated with the reduction of the paradigm or the isolation of a word form from that paradigm. In the transition of changing words into unchangeable words, the paradigm is shortened and narrowed. Homonyms relating to one or different parts of speech express different meanings with regard to their paradigmatic and syntagmatic aspects. Grammatical homonyms are not distinguished in dictionaries and cannot be homonyms based only on grammatical meanings. In the Crimean Tatar language, a number of nouns are formed as a result of substantivization of adjectives. A significant number of adjectives are formed as a result of adjectivization. Grammatical homonymy is much more abstract than lexical. Lexical homonyms are always represented by separate words. Grammatical homonymy may be expressed in the identity of entire word forms, grammatical formants, grammatical constructions or models.

Keywords: Crimean Tatar language, conversion, grammatical homonymy, homonymy, word meaning

Introduction

Due to the fact that the concept of meaning covers not only lexical but also grammatical meanings, the difference in grammatical meanings of words should be considered as important as the difference in lexical meanings in homonymy. Homonymy may be characterized by either or both of these features.

Vinogradov repeatedly wrote about the need to study such homonyms, pointing out that there are a lot of not only controversial, unresolved, but also urgent issues in this area (Allendorf, 1965).

Special attention to the grammatical method of word formation, namely the transition of words from one part of speech to another in Turkic languages is noted in the works of Kononov, Dmitriev, Oruzbaeva, Sevortyan and others. In the works, the term “conversion” is used to denote the regular and irregular transition of words to other parts of speech.

Problem Statement

Conversion is the formation of a new word by transferring the given stem word into another paradigm of inflexion.

Using the example of words such as – and –; – and – we can make sure that as a result of conversion, semantic relations of the main grammatical meanings are broken in a broad sense, and each of these words falls into different grammatical classes: like verbs are conjugated, and like nouns are inflected. As a result, the “behavior” of such words in the language is different. Words are distributed among different parts of speech and thus become different words – homonyms.

Some researchers consider conversion as a rudimentary manifestation of the former syncretism of Turkic root morphemes, which left a small number of homonyms and were declining (Batmanov, 1963; Sevortyan, 1962). Other researchers consider conversion a purely functional phenomenon that does not affect either the original categorical affiliation of a word or its identity.

Research Questions

We believe that conversion cannot be considered only as a rudimentary manifestation or a purely functional phenomenon. The stable function of one word, the lexical meaning or morphological properties during its transition from one part of speech to another are perceived not as a single linguistic unit. Therefore, when converting words with the same form, they should be considered as units with different lexical meanings, morphological structures and syntactic functions. In the transition from one part of speech to another, the converted word gradually departs from the previous semantic and grammatical system and is fixed in the other part of speech as a stable independent lexical unit, morphological and syntactic acquisition of a word.

The regular use of words of this part of speech as words of another part of speech is their natural property and not one of their main roles. Baskakov adheres to this point of view on the nature of the Turkic parts of speech and on the possibility of their transformation, which does not recognize the transition of one part of speech to another not only in conversion, but also in word-forming forms of words specifically intended for grammatically organized transformation of one part of speech into another – he belongs these forms not to a part of speech, which they form, but to the one from which they are formed (Baskakov, 1952).

Dmitriev qualifies conversion as a regular phenomenon of the transition of one part of speech into another, which gives rise to two-functioning words of the type adjective – noun, noun – adjective, but, like Baskakov, he refers such a hybrid only to any single part of speech solely based on its etymology, although he recognizes the need to take into account its meanings and functions (Dmitriev, 2008). Thus, analyzing polyfunctional words of the Crimean Tatar – “old” and – “old man”, N.K. Dmitriev notes that they “are originally adjectives, since they indicate the sign of a subject; in syntactic terms, they may act both as adjectives and as nouns: compare the expressions such as – “old man” and – “an old man came”. Thus, according to the features of semantic and syntactic characteristics (morphological features are not present here), the wordcould be called by a conditional term “adjective-noun.”

In general, conversion is most often considered as a grammatical phenomenon: as a regular use of a word in a series of two or three parts of speech, regardless of its lexico-grammatical identity.

Hence, Zhluktenko (1958) states that the act of forming a new word by conversion is the use of the stem of the original word to make another word in a different grammatical combination typical of another part of speech.

Purpose of the Study

Based on the views of linguists considered in this matter, we believe that conversion is one of the ways in which grammatical homonyms are formed. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to study and analyze grammatical homonyms formed as a result of conversion in the Crimean Tatar language.

Research Methods

The Crimean Tatar language is characterized by grammatical homonyms formed by the substantivization of adjectives, adverbialization of nouns, adjectivization of participles and the transition of basic or notional words into the category of auxiliary parts of speech. The main regularity of the homonymity of words of different parts of speech is that the transition of words from one part of speech to another is associated with the reduction of the paradigm or the isolation of a word form from the paradigm. In the transition of changing words into unchangeable words, the paradigm is shortened and narrowed. Homonyms relating to one or different parts of speech express different meanings with regard to their paradigmatic and syntagmatic aspects. Besides, grammatical homonyms are not distinguished in dictionaries and cannot be homonyms based only on grammatical meanings.

In the Crimean Tatar language a number of nouns is formed as a result of substantivization of adjectives:– “blue” and “sky”, – “young” and – “a young man”, – “bitter, caustic” and – “burning, pain”, – “original” and“essence”, – “spotty” and “partridge”.

In Turkic languages, including Crimean Tatar, a small number of grammatical homonyms are formed as a result of the conversion of verbs and verb forms into nouns: for example, from participial forms with - – “will come” and – “future”; with – “will come” and– “income”; from verb forms with,, for example,– “to strike” and– “thimble”;– “eat” and– “food, meal”, etc.

Grammatical homographs are formed by adding- to the verb stems and other affixes of a negative verb form being heteronymous formative affixes of the noun: for example, – “cabbage rolls” and– “don’t wrap”, – “roll” and – “don’t twist”, – “farinaceous dish” and– “don’t fold”,– “pickaxe”, – “don’t dig”, – “an invention, fiction” and – “don’t invent”.

Homonyms of this group have various grammatical categories: the first components have the category of tense, voice, number, person, and the second components – the category of number and case. Besides, they perform various syntactic functions in a sentence – the first components perform the function of a subject and an object or, less often, nominal predicates; the second components perform the function of a verbal predicate. Thus, the first and second components of the homonymic series almost do not overlap, and this gives reason to consider these pairs as homonyms.

It should also be noted that with the exception of adverbs, words of almost all significant parts of speech are converted into nouns.

As a result of concretization and individualization of the general concept of words, which are commonly called the homogeneous objects, begin to be used for certain objects, i.e. they become their proper names. Thus, the same word may be recognized and used both as a common name and as a proper name.

Some linguists believe that as a result of substantivization, proper names form hhomophones. For example, Shansky writes, “homophones may be both homonymous in nature like–,–, and homoform, like––” (Shansky, 2009).

Allendorf (1965) believes that homonyms are words that transition from a lexical series of common names to a series of proper names, and vice versa, from a series of proper to common names. This phenomenon is associated with the metaphorical transfer of a word, and therefore they are considered as semantic homonyms.

As a result of individualization of common names by metaphor and metonymy, words are formed with different meaning and function. Coinciding in phonetic composition, such words form homonymy. However, in writing they look differently – they have different spelling.

A proper name is not a regular word; it is not explained or translated. As a result, such words as– “proper name” and– “lion”,“proper name” and“diamond”,“proper name” and – “capricious”, – “proper name” and– “second”, etc. are considered grammatical homophones.

In the Crimean Tatar language, a significant number of adjectives are formed as a result of adjectivization. Words and word forms of all parts of speech are transferred into adjectives, only their productivity is different.

Adjectives formed as a result of adjectivization of nouns (for example, and – “poplin”, – “silver” and– “silver”, – “marble” and – “marble”, – “wool” and– “wool”, – “karakul” and – “karakul” (any noun denoting the material is converted into an adjective),– “back side” and– “back”, – “north” and – “north”, – “hero” and – “brave”, etc.) denote “made consisting of that material (, etc.) or characterized by that spatial relation (, etc.) or quality, property (, etc.), which are expressed in the original basis”.

Noting that “such definitive combinations () are not related in homonymy in the field of adjectives and nouns for a simple reason that the first components do not express attributive relations, i.e. they do not express the feature of a subject, but are recognized as subject concepts” (Gochiyaeva, 1973).

Transitions of nouns to adjectives in the Crimean Tatar language may be regular and irregular.

In some cases, the transition of numerals to adjectives is observed, for example:– “one” (ве иляхре – “one, two, three and so on”) and – “the same, common” ( – “they are both the same”), – “first” and – “original”).

The meaning of adjectives in these words is given in dictionaries. The presence of the meaning of adjectives in some numerals is also a generally accepted fact, therefore, these words are considered by us as adjectives formed from numerals by conversion.

Regarding the formation of adverbs as a result of the adverbialization of nouns (in particular, indirect forms of a noun), Beglyarova (1979) notes that:

The tendency in the adverbialization of nouns is largely predetermined by the existence of words with a spatial and temporal meaning in this part of speech, which often have a dual character revealing the features of a noun or an adverb by their “behavior” in speech. (p. 15)

Let us give examples of the adverbs of time formed by conversion from indirect noun forms: – “in the head” and – “at the beginning”, – “from the head” and– “first”.

In the Crimean Tatar language, a large number of adverbs are formed by the adverbialization of adjectives, there are often cases when adjectives pass into both adverbs and nouns, for example:– “bright” () – “the rooms were large and bright”), “light” (– “suddenly the light hit the eyes”) and “light” (– “you need to get there by daylight ”), – “cold” ( – “cold wind”), “cold” ( – “to get used to cold”) and “cold” ( – “the guests were given a cold reception”), etc.

In some cases, only adverbs are formed from adjectives, for example: – “good” and – “well”,– “full” and– “fully”,– “separate” and– “separately” (they differ in a small semantic connection, stress and belong to different parts of speech, are grammatical homonyms).

It is difficult to determine how the above words are formed by the transition from adjectives to adverbs or by the conversion of adverbs to adjectives. In this case, the main criterion is the primacy of discharge (part-of-speech) semantics. It seems to us that for the above words the meaning of adjectives is primary.

The following atypical case is interesting; it is formed according to the model “name + indication of a dative case”: – depending on its function it acts as a numeral in the meaning of “one”, then as an adverb in the meaning of “together”. Nothing but function makes it impossible to unequivocally understand both the lexical content of these words and their categorical affiliation.

It is easy to verify that we deal with qualitatively different words, since, firstly, an adverb has stress, but a postposition (those postposition that are written closed) and a particle – not, secondly, an adverb is an independent member of a sentence, and a postposition and particle are not, thirdly, some of them are independent, others are auxiliary parts of speech. Therefore, the words – “then” (adverb) and – “after” (postposition) should be qualified as homonyms.

Homonyms that arose on the basis of the transition of independent words into auxiliary ones differ significantly from traditional homonymy. If, with traditional homonymy (for example, in substantivization), a word does not lose its main (nominative) function in the process of change, then when it moves to a postposition or particle, it gradually loses its lexical separateness and begins to function as a means of expressing logical-grammatical relations between individual subjects of thought (Zhluktenko, 1958).

The peculiarities of Turkic languages confirm that the process of homonymization is a historical phenomenon with deep roots. The history of the parts of the speech of Turkic languages is associated with the history of primary homonyms. In Turkic languages, homonyms may belong to different parts of speech, especially to nominal and verbal forms, for example: – “saturate” and – “wedding”, – “drink” and – “core”, – “grow thin” and – “few”, – “move” and – “nomad camp”, etc.

The semantic analysis of verbal and nominal roots suggests that in the early days in Turkic languages, one word could denote both an object at a standstill (as a noun) and an object in motion, or the very movement or action of the object (as a verb).

Homonyms that did not changed their morphological and phonetic composition, and that did not pass from one part of speech to another, are called differently in Turkology, for example, Sevortyan calls them verbal-nominal, primary foundations (Sevortyan, 1962), and the Kazakh linguist Akhanov – root homonyms () (Akhanov, 1958). Some linguists believe that they arose as a result of conversion (Bekdzhanova, 1967).

There is still no consensus in linguistics about the origin of primary homonyms. Thus, Yuldashev considers the emergence of primary homonyms as the result of the desire to think differently, metaphorically (Yuldashev, 1958), Baskakov, Batmanov, Melioranskysky consider homonymy in cases of – “saturate” and – “feast” as an illustration of the survival stage of language development (Baskakov, 1952; Batmanov, 1963; Beglyarova, 1979; Melioranskysky, 1899; Oruzbaeva, 1964). Sevortyan considers such facts one of the ancient ways of word formation in the Turkic languages, the result of the phenomenon of syncretism (Sevortyan, 1962); and other researchers (Bekdzhanova, Ganiev, Mirtodzhiev, Musabaev, Oruzbaeva) indicate that this method of word formation is one of the oldest in the Turkic languages (Bekdzhanova, 1967; Melioranskysky, 1899; Oruzbaeva, 1964; Tursunov & Rajabov, 1966). Some foreign turcologists allow two possibilities of matching a name and a verb in the same word (Gronbeek, 1963; Ramstedt, 1957). In particular, according to Gronbeek, this occurs as a result of the random coincidence of initially different words with the phonetic tension of the sound complex of a word, or as a result of the random identity of two different affixes. The opinion of Daniyarov (1977) is consistent with the first assumption: “There are many single-syllable root homonymic words, which in grammatical terms simultaneously belong to two categories – nouns and verbs. It seems that they are one of the primary types of phonetic word formation” (p. 23). The second assumption of Gronbeek develops and complements Yunusaliev (1959), who points out that: “Primary homonymy historically comes from verb roots using formative homonymic affixes” (p. 35). Thus, highlighting the coincidence of names and verbs in one root the authoritative researcher of primary homonyms in the Turkic languages Yunusaliev (1959) explained this phenomenon “neither by the stadiality of language development nor by the dominance of accidents in the sound change of a word” (p. 49). In his opinion, a strict lexico-grammatical pattern should be seen here, acting at the early stages of the development of Kyrgyz and its related Turkic languages and gradually declining in the later periods of their history.

Findings

The analysis of the above facts makes it possible to draw the following conclusions. Homonymous words (verb – name, verb – adjective, verb – adverb), historically dating back to one root, are called differently in the scientific literature: “verbal-nominal primary bases”, “homonyms that arose as a result of conversion”, “root homonyms ()”, “primary homonyms”. We believe that the most correct name is the one proposed by Yunusaliev – “primary homonyms” (Akhanov, 1958; Yunusaliev, 1959).

In the emergence of primary homonyms, the main role is played by the historical development of verbs of the noun-verb structure (Yunusaliev, 1959; Zhaparov & Sydykova, 2013). As advised by some researchers, at the first stages of language development, the name of a subject and its movement were transmitted into one word (Melioranskysky, 1899). The origin of primary homonyms from one root is one of the historical resources of word formation in Turkic languages.

Conclusion

The consideration of grammatical homonyms in the modern Crimean Tatar language, including substantivization, the transition of common names into proper names, adjectivization, adverbialization, transition of notional words into structural or primary homonymy confirms the complex nature of processes that occur in the formation of vocabulary and grammar of the modern Crimean Tatar language. Syntactic and morphological factors that resolve and formalize syntactic changes form grammatical homonyms. In this process, the unity of action of all aspects of the language, their mutual connection and interdependence are manifested. Familiarization with the phenomena of grammatical homonymy confirms the need for a more detailed theoretical and practical study of language teaching.

Grammatical homonymy is much more abstract than lexical. If lexical homonyms are always represented by separate words – carriers of a certain real content, then grammatical homonymy may be expressed not only in the identity of entire word forms, as in all the above examples, but also in the identity of only grammatical formants, as well as in the identity of grammatical constructions or models.

Thus, the essence of grammatical homonymy is that they serve as homonyms only due to the coincidence of grammatical forms.

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