The valency of postpositions in old Turkic

The postpositions are words that choose a noun phrase or noun complement as an obligatory item when creating a phrase structure in the sentence in Turkish. In this phrasal structure it creates, the postpositions are governor. In this position, it determines certain syntactic frameworks and assigns various roles to the item attached to it, namely its complement, and these form the valency frame of postposition. In order to better understand the manuscript of the Old Turkic, it is necessary to determine the valency frame in which postpositions exist throughout the history of the Turkish language, the changes that these valency frames have shown between the periods of Old Turkic, their syntactic positions and draw their boundaries. This study focuses on the valency of postposition in Old Turkic (Orkhon, Old Uygur and Karakhanid Turkish) to draw the boundaries mentioned. The study discusses the concepts of valency and postposition in grammar and linguistics studies on the basis of dependency grammar theory. In the study, the valency frame of 32 primary postpositions compiled from Old Turkic written sources was analysed with witnesses from texts. The valency frame of the aforementioned postpositions is examined at three valency aspects: logical, syntactic and semantic valency. Semantic roles have been used in determining the semantic valency, so that, the functional and semantic structure of the postpositionshave been categorized. According to the syntactic valency, both the appearance of the postpositions in the grammatical process was shed light and the structure of the postposition nodes in the syntax of Old Turkic was determined. Thus, based on the dependency relationship, the multifunctionality, semantic roles and syntactic structures of postpositions in Old Turkic were revealed.