ADP : adposition

Definition

Turkish only has postpositions. They occur after a complement noun phrase (or a nominal subordinate clause) and they form a single structure with the complement to express its grammatical and semantic relation to another unit within a clause.

A number of postpositions in Turkish are complex, derived from a closed set of nouns (see Göksel & Kerslake 2005, ch.17). Examples include, alt-ın-da “below”, arka-sı-nda “behind”, konu-su-nda “about”. We also mark these expressions as ADP when they are used as postpositions (TODO: this requires discussion).

Examples

• Ali’ye rağmen “despite Ali”
• Ali için “for Ali”
• Kalabalığın arasında “between/within the crowd”
• Ali’nin dışında “except Ali”

References

Aslı Göksel and Celia Kerslake. Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar. London: Routledge, 2005.