Stratification and stratal layering in Old Anatolian Turkish

A stratum refers to a dialect that belongs to a community within the same time and space. Since the term dialect encompasses all kinds of speech variations -such as accent, vernacular, or regional language many strata exist within the Turkish language. For instance, Old Turkish (Köktürkçe), Old Anatolian Turkish, Yakut Turkish, and the Ankara dialect all represent distinct strata. From the term stratum arise two other important concepts: stratification and stratal layering. Stratification refers to the process by which dialectal features that originate from different periods, geographical regions, or both, come together within a single dialect -thus becoming integral components of the same linguistic process. Stratifications within a branch of a language are analyzed at three levels: phonetic, morphological, and semantic. Based on such analyses, the influence of different strata, their features, and their hierarchy are identified. Layering, on the other hand, is the process by which a stratum forms itself. The stratal layering of Old Anatolian Turkish occurred through the spread and generalization of its formative features, changes observed through morphophonetic and semantic processes, internal and external borrowings, and lexical influences through contact. The theoretical and practical data obtained make it possible to construct the layering chart of Old Anatolian Turkish. This chart includes phonetic and morphological rules that show the stratification of Old Anatolian Turkish. In addition to primary stratum composed of the dialects that constitutin Old Anatolian Turkish, Old Turkish, Early Azerbaijani Turkish, Eastern Turkish, and Kipchak Turkish, as well as loanword strata originating Arabic, Persian, Mongolian, Greek and Armenian.