Araştırma Makalesi

Contact at the treetops: syntactic borrowing and syntactic complexity

Cilt: 36 Sayı: 3 - Türkiye'de Tehlikedeki Diller Özel Sayısı (Konuk Editörler: Mehmet Akkuş, Çiğdem Sağın Şimşek) / Special Issue - Endangered Languages in Turkey (Guest Editors: Mehmet Akkuş, Çiğdem Sağın Şimşek) 27 Ocak 2026
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Contact at the treetops: syntactic borrowing and syntactic complexity

Abstract

We examine the function and structure of ki-clauses in Modern Greek dialects of Trabzon (Romeyka), Silli, Cappadocia and Pharasa. We demonstrate that ki, transferred from Turkish, has been integrated into the clausal spine of these dialects in JudgeP (Krifka, 2023), whereby the speaker renders their private epistemic judgement regarding an assertion in its scope. In the source language, Turkish, ki spells-out not only Judge head—the lowest head in the expressive layer—but all heads of this layer. Given that ki realizes solely the Judge head in the Asia Minor Greek dialects, we propose a constraint according to which the accommodation of morphosyntactic rules in contact situations commences at the lowest relevant projection of a layer relevant to that rule. In other words, the accommodation of contact-induced rules correlates with structural complexity.

Keywords

Kaynakça

  1. Aelbrecht, L., Haegeman, L. & Nye, R. (2012). Main clause phenomena and the privilege of the root. In L. Aelbrecht et al. (Eds.), Main clause phenomena: New horizons (pp. 1–20). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
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Ayrıntılar

Birincil Dil

İngilizce

Konular

Dil Belgeleme ve Açıklama , Dilbilim (Diğer)

Bölüm

Araştırma Makalesi

Yayımlanma Tarihi

27 Ocak 2026

Gönderilme Tarihi

15 Kasım 2024

Kabul Tarihi

30 Aralık 2025

Yayımlandığı Sayı

Yıl 2025 Cilt: 36 Sayı: 3 - Türkiye'de Tehlikedeki Diller Özel Sayısı (Konuk Editörler: Mehmet Akkuş, Çiğdem Sağın Şimşek) / Special Issue - Endangered Languages in Turkey (Guest Editors: Mehmet Akkuş, Çiğdem Sağın Şimşek)

Kaynak Göster

APA
Bağrıaçık, M., & Öztürk, B. (2026). Contact at the treetops: syntactic borrowing and syntactic complexity. Dilbilim Araştırmaları Dergisi, 36(3 - Türkiye’de Tehlikedeki Diller Özel Sayısı (Konuk Editörler: Mehmet Akkuş, Çiğdem Sağın Şimşek) / Special Issue - Endangered Languages in Turkey (Guest Editors: Mehmet Akkuş, Çiğdem Sağın Şimşek), 261-292. https://doi.org/10.18492/dad.1585856