Time and aspect in Turkish Sign Language (TİD): manual and nonmanual realizations of 'finish'

Abstract

The need to study aspectual marking in TİD lies in the fact that a small number of studies in the literature mention manual aspectual markers but do not provide a detailed analysis. Understanding the aspectual marking in TİD will present a comprehensive understanding of the event structure in TİD and how it is mapped to syntax. In this thesis, I discuss the implications of my findings for aspect projections in Turkish Sign Language (TİD). I especially focus on viewpoint aspect based on an empirical study that investigates how the manual aspect marker BİT 'finish' and the nonmanual marker 'bn' differ in terms of their aspectual functions. First of all, I present data that these signs are functional signs used to mark viewpoint aspect in TİD. The evidence comes from empirical data presenting their interaction with negation. Secondly, I discuss that the manual marker BİT has a significantly different aspectual function from the nonmanual marker ‘bn’ by providing their sub-categorizational frames. Even though Dikyuva (2011) analyzed 'bn' as a completive marker, I show that 'bn' is compatible with both termination and completion. Building upon the syntactic representation proposed for TİD by Gökgöz (2009), I propose that TİD has a set of aspectual projections and BİT and 'bn' enter the syntactic composition at different levels of hierarchical structure of these functional categories. These findings will shed light on the discussions and studies on event structure, complexity in the verbal domain, and how semantic notions interact with syntax.