Grammaticalization in Turkish: A cognitive grammatical analysis

Language change had an important place in Indo-European linguistics and the phenomena, which we call grammaticalization today, had been investigated too. The studies that had started with language change research took a different turn with Meillet using the term grammaticalization. Although the term had its ups-and-downs in the 20thcentury, it has become popularized with Givón in the 1970s and Lehmann in the 1980s. In this respect, our study aims at developing a theoretical analysis model to explain the grammaticalization phenomena in Turkish considering the motivations behind grammaticalization and its cognitive aspects. In accordance with this aim, the the following research questions were asked: i) Is it possible to develop an analysis model that could explain and visualize the grammaticalization phenomena with a holistic approach based on a theoretical framework? and ii) Is it possible to detect a pattern in the grammaticalization phenomena in Turkish? To answer these questions the term grammaticalization is redefined covering all aspect of the phenomenon. We defined grammaticalization as a process in which a linguistic unit without any grammatical function gains a grammatical function or a grammatical unit with a weak grammatical function gains a stronger grammatical function due to discourse-pragmatic or cognitive motivations vii arising from communicative requirements passing through processes of bleaching, extension, decategorialization and erosion. To study this phenomenon, an analysis model including metaphor and metonymy, which are used in examining grammaticalization, is developed. This analysis model, which explains and visualizes grammaticalization with its motivations, considering the metaphorical and metonymical processes involved was tested on grammaticalization phenomena in Turkish and it is found that metonymy is a more fundamental process than metaphor in grammaticalization, Turkish grammaticalization examples have an inclination for anomalies between source structures and target structures and grammaticalization is motivated by discourse related requirements.