This book contains 48 papers presented at the Fourteenth International Conference on Turkish Linguistics, held by Ankara University in August 6-8, 2008. The contributions to this conference cover a wide range of topics in theoretical, descriptive and applied linguistics relating to Turkish and Turkic languages in discussing a great variety of issues related to phonology and phonetics, morphology, syntax and semantics, pragmatics and discourse, language acquisition, language contact, and applied linguistics, as they have been grouped in this volume. Although the main focus of the volume is on Turkish linguistic issues, there are also a number of articles in different modern linguistic frameworks dealing with Turkic languages and Turkish dialects. The book will be appealing to anyone interested in current issues in theoretical linguistics as well as those who are working on Turcology, linguistic typology, contact linguistics, and applied linguistics.

Turkish is a member of the Turkic family of languages, which extends over a vast area in southern and eastern Siberia and adjacent portions of Iran, Afganistan, and China. Turkic, in turn, belongs to the Altaic family of languages. This book deals with the morphological and syntactic, semantic and discourse-based, synchronic and diachronic aspects of the Turkish language. Although an interest in morphosyntactic issues pervades the entire collection, the contributions can be grouped in terms of relative attention to syntax, semantics and discourse, and acquisition.

Exploring the Turkish Linguistic Landscape provides in-depth analyses of different aspects of Turkish in the domains of phonology, morphology and syntax, discourse and language acquisition relevant to recent theoretical discussions. While some of the papers in the volume offer new analyses to known linguistic puzzles, others raise new questions which have not been addressed in the literature before. This collection of original articles written by colleagues and students of Prof. Eser Erguvanlı-Taylan, honoring her contribution to the field of linguistics, features articles on vowel reduction, consonant clusters, negation, conditionals, voice morphology, evidentiality, acquisition of irregular morphology, complementation and subordination in varieties of Turkish. It will be of interest to a wide audience ranging from theoreticians to typologists and is expected to generate further research on Turkish, as well as to contribute to the cross-linguistic literature on the issues addressed in the volume.

This book brings together the findings of current studies on the second language (L2) acquisition of Turkish, an Altaic language with more than 140 million native speakers around the world. There is now a growing interest in learning and teaching Turkish as an L2, both in and outside Turkey. Coordinated efforts to produce theoretical and empirical work on the acquisition and teaching of L2 Turkish are therefore an urgent need. The compilation in this volume offers eleven L2 studies that explore the representation and/or processing of various linguistic properties in different domains of grammar (phonology, morpho-syntax, pragmatics) and their interfaces. All studies involve adult L2 Turkish learners with various first-language backgrounds at different proficiency levels. With extensive discussions on theoretical and pedagogical issues, this title will appeal to an international readership that includes L2 Turkish researchers, materials designers, and teachers.

This book provides the most updated discussion of the most important issues facing students, scholars, and researchers in second language acquisition research and development. Contents: Current Issues in Second Language Acquisition and Development: An Introduction, Carol A. Blackshire-Belay; Section 1: Language Development and Transfer. Native Language Transfer and Universal Simplification, Robin Sabino; Aspect Transferability (Or: What Gets Lost in the Translation-and Why?), Terence Odlin; Creole Verb Serialization: Transfer or Spontaneity? Frank Byrne; Section 2: Learner Variables in Second Language Acquisition. Contexts for Second Language Acquisition, Elsa Lattey; Language Acquisition, Biography and Bilingualism, Ulrich Steinmuller; Acquisition of Japanese by American Businessmen in Tokyo: How Much and Why? Yoshiko Matsumoto; Section 3: Issues in Interlanguage Development. Abrupt Restructuring Versus Gradual Acquisition, Hanna Pishwa; Variability in Grammatical Analysis: On Recognizing Verbal Markers in Foreign Workers' German, Carol A. Blackshire-Belay; Sketch of an Interlanguage Rule System: Advanced Nonnative German Gender Assignment, Joe Salmons.