Noun formation in the yenisei inscriptions

The Yenisei inscriptions are inscriptions of various sizes, numbering around 300 to date, written in Turkic runic letters on various materials such as standing stones, gravestones, mirrors, and metal along the Yenisei River, which flows through the autonomous regions of Tuva and Khakassia, part of the Russian Federation. These inscriptions contain words that differ from those found in khanate inscriptions written in Turkic runic script. They also provide dialectological data, such as evidence of certain sound changes in early Turkic and the representation of the closed e sound with a different sign. This necessitates the examination of word formation in these texts outside the scope of historical dictionaries and grammars. The aim of this study is to evaluate the morphological structure by identifying the noun-deriving suffixes in these texts and the words derived with these suffixes. While the main material of the study consists of all the Yenisey inscriptions in Aydın 2019, other studies have also been compared in the reading and interpretation of the identified words. The historical journey of the suffixes from the Turkic runic texts to modern Turkish has been traced. An entry has been created for each word in which the suffix was identified, and its analysis has been provided. The differences in Turkish throughout its historical periods have been demonstrated by comparing the etymological studies and dictionary data. Under the heading 'Derivation of Nouns from Verbs,' ninety-four words and eighteen suffixes were evaluated in two main sections, while under the heading 'Derivation of Nouns from Nouns,' eighty-three words and twenty-seven suffixes were evaluated, totalling one hundred and seventy-seven words and thirty-five suffixes. The dialectological data of the suffixes and words, their formation paths, frequency of use, and the process up to Turkish were examined. It was understood that in subsequent studies, by combining the methods of amalgamation and borrowing, and bringing together all the reading and interpretation suggestions related to these inscriptions with data from living Turkish dialects, different results could be achieved. In conclusion, an attempt has been made to contribute to the lexical studies of Turkish runic texts, specifically in the Yenisey region. Keywords: Yenisey inscriptions, Turkic runic, derivational affixes, etymology, noun formation