M.A. Theses

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Turkish indefinites : scope and specificity
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2022., 2022) Baykuş, Ecem.; Guerzoni, Elena.
Turkish indefinites in object position are expressed in two ways: one is marked with the accusative case, and the other one is non-marked. Interestingly, there is a sharp contrast between these two indefinites. Accusative marked indefinites in the object position show ambiguity between specific and non- specific interpretations whereas non-marked indefinites have only a non-specific interpretation. This thesis aims to develop a critical perspective on the semantic and syntactic differences between these two types of indefinites in Turkish. Although Enç (1991), Kelepir (2001), Öztürk (2005) and Özge (2010) present their proposals on the behavior of accusative marked and non-marked indefinites, these proposals are insufficient to fully account for the indefinites behavior. This thesis aims to give a unified and semantic oriented investigation on Turkish indefinites by delving into the missing points in earlier works. Firstly, this thesis will look at the behavior of indefinites in extensional contexts and clarify the contrast between accusative marked and non-marked indefinites in these contexts. Secondly, the thesis will analyze the interaction of indefinites with intensional operators. Fodor (1970) claims that a specific and a non- specific reading that indefinites receive are derived separately from a de re and a de dicto reading. Therefore, an indefinite receives four different readings when it scopes below an intentional operator in the surface structure. In conclusion, this thesis will go over the proposals on indefinites and provide a critical perspective on them by looking at Turkish examples.
Lexical effects in morpho-orthographic segmentation
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2022., 2022.) Kellum, Allyson Lee.; Logacev, Pavel.
The present study investigated how native English speakers process morphologically complex words and monomorphemic words. Pseudo-complex words have a whole word meaning, but also a possible decomposition into a stem and suffix, which means that they may be processed more similarly to monomorphemic words due to the whole-word meaning or more similarly to morphologically complex words, as decomposition is possible. This study was carried out using a masked priming lexical decision task, and is unique in that it used the same target word in all experimental conditions and used only derivational suffixes. Results showed that pseudo-complex words were processed similar to monomorphemic words. Additionally, the base frequency effect was found, with higher-frequency target words being processed faster and showing fewer priming effects overall. Results were modeled with the additional measures of the sum of the word ending bigram frequencies, the possibility of an incorrect decomposition due to the presence of another suffix, and individual self-rated spelling ability. A clear segmentation and stronger spelling skills decreased reaction times. Overall, the results of the study support that pseudo complex words are processed more similarly to monomorphemic words, suggesting that no decomposition took place.
Turkish memes and their users :|indexicality and identity through language play
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2022., 2022.) Tunçer, Ümit Can.; Akar, Didar.
Internet memes have been a considerable point of interest to their users ever since their widespread recognition on social media channels. These digital items often come in different shapes and formats, varying from simple texts accompanying images to complex video edits and audiovisual tokens. Recently, memes have started to appear in linguistics studies (George, 2020; Vasquez and Aslan, 2021, Yus, 2020) where their text-over-image properties proved to be significant in terms of indexicality and identity construction, language play, and the pragmatics of incongruity resolutions. This thesis aims to contribute to what has been discussed in the literature, with a selection of additional language play strategies observed in memes and Caps in Turkish social media. In addition to these language play strategies, an analysis utilizing the Indexicality Framework (Eckert, 2008; Silverstein, 2003) was used to demonstrate the complex meaning-making processes of memes, as well as the identity construction via the use of text and imagery. The second part of this thesis involves a practice-oriented approach to the communities that make and consume memes on social media. For this part, the Community of Practice framework (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 1999; Meyerhoff and Strycharz, 2013; Wenger, 1998) was utilized to demonstrate how certain affordances of social media channels allow for different practices that form within the meme communities. Furthermore, the member practices were shown to demonstrate the membership and identity construction within the meme communities.
Multinomial processing tree models of recent accounts of the processing of noncanonical word order sentences
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2022., 2022.) Çavuşoğlu, Kasım Burak.; Logacev, Pavel.
This study investigates the predictions of the retrieval and the parsing accounts of the processing of noncanonical word order sentences by implementing their suggestions in multinomial processing tree (MPT) models (Riefer & Batchelder, 1988). MPT models allow the estimation of probabilities of unobservable and hypothesized cognitive events or states using categorical data, and an analysis of the predictions and the technical properties of these models can provide information as to how accounts of cognitive processes can be improved. Recent literature has identified systematic performance decrease in the agent/patient naming task, among other types of experimental tasks, when comprehenders were faced with noncanonical word order sentences (Ferreira, 2003; Bader & Meng, 2018). The retrieval account (Bader & Meng, 2018; Meng & Bader, 2021), suggests that this decrease in performance is caused by problems with the cue-based retrieval operation triggered by the task probes, whereas the parsing account (Ferreira, 2003; Christianson, Luke & Ferreira, 2010) suggests that the decrease in performance is caused by misinterpretation. We developed multiple MPT models that reflect the assumptions of these two accounts and fitted these to the data from the first experiment of Meng and Bader (2021). We found that the retrieval account is more eligible for adaptation into an MPT structure than the parsing account, and that the parsing account needed deeper revision of its assumptions.
Applicatives in Ladino
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2021., 2021.) Dinç, Fatma Belgin.; Öztürk, Balkız.
This thesis explores how non-core arguments are licensed in Ladino/Judeo Espanyol (JE), a minority language spoken in Turkey by the Sephardic Jews. The language has been in contact with Turkish since the settlement of the Jewish immigrants coming from Spain by the end of the XVth century. We studied low applicative structures in JE with a focus on possessor applicatives. According to our findings, JE does not license the applied arguments below the verb phrase layer except for some frozen expressions, hence the structure is more in line with high applicatives. When the language codes possession or recipients through applicatives, it is restricted to animates therefore it includes also the semantics of affectedness. Another phenomenon observed in JE is that in possessor applicatives the possessor is marked with dative and genitive case interchangeably. In our view this might be a linguistic change towards the merging of dative and genitive case in JE.
Applicatives in Pomak
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2022., 2022.) Karakaş, Sercan.; Öztürk, Balkız.
This thesis aims at analyzing how non-core arguments are licensed in Pomak, a severely endangered language spoken in the Balkans, within the Generative Framework, focusing on ditranstive constructions, i.e. double object constructions, prepositional ditranstive constructions, and dative possessors. For the analysis of ditranstive constructions, we provide data from two dialects of Pomak, Şahin dialect spoken in Xanthi, Greece and Uzunköprü dialect spoken in Edirne, Turkey. The findings indicate that Uzunköprü dialect does not exhibit low applicative pattern in ditranstive constructions and instead, it shows the properties of prepositional ditranstive constructions based on binding, scopal relationship and weak cross-over effects unlike the Şahin dialect, which constructs ditranstive constructions via a low applicative head. The analysis of the possessor applicatives is restricted to Uzunköprü dialect and we show that applicative possession in Pomak cannot be analyzed, assuming that the applicative head is in the nominal domain proposed by Iovtcheva (2019) for the analysis of Bulgarian, which is the closest relative of Pomak. Finally, we show that unlike Cuervo (2003), possessor applicatives are constructed via a high applicative, which takes VP as its complement, or a higher applicative, which takes vP as its complement, the selection of which yields in a difference in meaning as a high applicative head contributes to the at-issue tier while higher applicative contributes to the not-at-issue tier.
Expression of arguments and age of acquisition effects in Turkish Sign Language
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2021., 2021.) Özdemir, Semra.; Gökgöz, Kadir.
This study explores how delayed exposure to Turkish Sign Language (TİD) affects the encoding of arguments on agreeing verbs, within an utterance, and in descriptions of multiple entities. The discussion on agreeing verbs hinges on the marking of referential loci that anchor arguments on person agreeing verbs (e.g. SHOW) and location agreeing verbs (e.g. FLY-TO). Location agreeing verbs are further examined to reveal patterns in the ordering of Figures (i.e. smaller, more mobile entities) and Grounds (i.e. larger, more immobile entities) within an utterance. Lastly, the expression of number information in noun phrases that introduce arguments during scene setting and verb phrases that describe events containing multiple entities are investigated. A series of elicitation tasks suggests the following: (i) late learners perform virtually on par with their native counterparts in terms of referent tracking, (ii) location agreement verbs elicit more faithful responses, in which referential loci are consistently cross-referenced on the verb, than person agreement verbs in both groups, (iii) native signers adhere more strictly to the Figure-Ground principle observed across sign languages, and (iv) late learners show a tendency to leave out number information on the verb when describing a single event with multiple entities. Taken together, these findings shed light on the critical period (Lenneberg, 1967) and offer insight into the components of language that are sensitive to the timing of language input.
Kazakh esh-words and negative concord
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2021., 2021.) Amirzhanova, Assem.; Guerzoni, Elena.
The goal of this thesis is twofold. First, I present compelling evidence that Esh-words in Kazakh pattern with Strict Negative Concord Items (SNCIs) of the variety found in Slavic languages (e.g. Russian) rather than alleged Negative Polarity Items in Altaic languages like Turkish. Secondly, I propose a novel perspective on SNC which presents significant advantages over existing ones (c.f. Zeijlstra 2004). The most explicit account of SNC languages (Zeijlstra 2004), makes the undesirable assumption that the sentential negative markers in them are just another SNCI licensed by a silent negative operator, thus failing to explain why its presence is obligatory to license all other SNCI. This proposal, instead, focusing on the absence of negative quantifiers (like no NP) in these languages, argues that syntactically local combinations of SNCI phrases with sentential negation is a device to express no NP. The proposal explains why Esh-words must occur with negation: Combining an existential determiner with a non-antimorphic function does not result in a negative determiner. Similarly, intervening quantifiers of any sort disrupt the equivalence with no, therefore the proposal makes two additional desirable predictions: i) Strict NC items are sensitive to intervention effects. ii) Strict NC items must occur in the same clause as the negation licensing them.
Semantics of Turkish free conditionals
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2021., 2021.) Akpınar, Kadernur.; Guerzoni, Elena.
The aim of the present research is to provide a novel compositional semantic analysis for Turkish conditional sentences with wh-phrases in their antecedents (wh conditionals henceforth), which are ambiguous between question and free conditional readings, the latter being the term I use for what roughly corresponds to English sentences with wh-ever phrases. Demirok (2017) is the only existing analysis of free conditionals in Turkish, which builds on Rawlins (2013). I show that Demirok’s and Rawlins’s view, which assumes Hamblin’s (1973) semantics of wh phrases, overgenerates, thus I suggest an alternative to it which assumes Rullman and Beck’s (1998) semantics of wh-phrases as restricted variables, instead. I argue that a wh-phrase can be bound by a universal modal operator, and this results in a free conditional reading, whereas, when it is bound by a question operator (as in Rullman and Beck, 1998), the question reading arises. Lastly, I turn to free conditionals involving an existential modal, and observe that one needs to stipulate the presence of a covert universal modal in them, in order to account for their truth conditions. The proposal in this dissertation contributes a new perspective on wh-conditionals in Turkish and possibly in other languages, which exhibit similar structures.
A semantic description of Turkish conditional sentences
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2021., 2021.) Soykan, Bergül.; Demirok, Ömer Faruk.
This thesis aims to provide a semantic description for the conditional statements in Turkish by mainly focusing on the interpretations of three different morphemes: namely the aorist, the conditional, and the past markers. Although Göksel and Kerslake (2005) briefly describe how the interpretation of conditional constructions may be affected by these markers, there has not been any detailed study on their semantic contributions. Therefore, I offer a semi-formal explanation for their interpretations in the context of conditionals here. Firstly, for the aorist marker occurring at the antecedent, I propose that it can shift the time of the modal operator in the conditional statement from the time of utterance to the future. However, if it chooses its characterizing reading instead of the future-oriented one, then it functions as an operator quantifying over situations. Secondly, with respect to the conditional morpheme, I argue that there are two separate markers with distinct meaning contributions. I claim that the indicative conditional marker -(y)sA assigns “epistemically possible” presupposition both for its antecedent and consequent clauses whereas the subjunctive -sA additionally brings in a certain “likelihood” presupposition for the antecedent. Lastly, concerning the past marker, I agree with the idea that it keeps its temporal meaning in both types of conditionals. Nevertheless, I suggest that it is interpreted as the modal time of the conditional statement when it is used with the subjunctive conditional marker and the conditional sentence holds no presuppositions in this context. As a result, due to the scalar competition between the past subjunctive and its indicative counterpart, the counterfactuality implicature arises for the past subjunctive conditional construction.
The analysis of Turkish passives in discourse
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 1983., 1983.) Tarzi, Muazzez.
A uniform account of personal and impersonal passives in Turkish
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2020., 2020.) Dikmen, Furkan.; Öztürk Başaran, Balkız.
In the literature, the general assumption is that passives of unaccusative predicates, and therefore passives of passives, or double passives are cross-linguistically unavailable. Current theories of syntax and semantics rule out such constructions in various ways. The most recent advancement in this endeavor is to suggest that passivization is necessarily restricted to the Voice domain, which is only available to unergative and (di)transitive structures. However, Turkish systematically allows both passives of unaccusative predicates and double passives, which we argue to pose a serious problem to the syntactic and semantic theory because current theories are founded on the premise that such constructions are prohibited. In this thesis, we will show that passive clauses are not derived from their active counterparts. More specifically, we will suggest that passive clauses are formed with items merged from the passive domain. This domain may consist of more than one passive head, subject to different licensing conditions in a language or may not be available for independent reasons. Hence, we argue that some languages may allow passives of unaccusatives and double passives if they fulfill these conditions. Particularly, we will argue that the head not merged in the active structure may be compensated for in the passive domain. However, if a head must somehow be projected before the passive domain, its corresponding passive form cannot be merged in the passive domain because it would cause two predicates of the same semantic contribution to be present in the same structure.
The causative-inchoative alternation in Turkish Sign Language and the age-of-acquisition effects on complex clauses
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2020., 2020.) Kayabaşı, Demet.; Gökgöz, Kadir.
This study aims to describe the causatives-inchoative alternation in Turkish Sign Language and to discuss the age-of-acquisition effects on multi-predicative constructions observed as both causative and inchoative clauses. The discussion extends itself to remarks on the structure of alternating verbs and serial verb constructions. I present and discuss the results of three tasks: a picture-description task, a picture matching task, and an acceptability judgment task. The results obtained from these tasks reveal that (i) the causative-inchoative alternation in Turkish Sign Language is attested both as labile alternation and classifier alternation, which is mostly compatible with previous accounts on this phenomenon in sign languages; however, Turkish Sign Language provides data that cannot be accounted for by Benedicto & Brentari’s (2004) account that directly links classifier handshapes and transitivity; (ii) both causative and inchoative clauses seem to have complex event structures; (iii) the structure of serial verb constructions seem to be of a mono-clausal nature; (iv) there seems to be no significant age of acquisition effects on preferring labile alternation or classifier alternation to mark the causativeinchoative alternation; yet (v) producing more complex clauses, i.e. serial verb constructions, appear to be an early acquisition group tendency.
Suspended affixation in Turkish
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2020., 2020.) Atmaca, Furkan.; Göksel, Aslı.
This study investigates Suspended Affixation (SA) and its environment. Lewis (1967) is credited with the term, but observations of SA can be found in earlier Turkish grammar books (Emre, 1945; Gencan, 1966). It is a morphological ellipsis process observed in constructions that contain conjuncts. Overt suffixes on the rightmost conjunct in a conjunction are interpreted in the other conjuncts. I provide both empirical and theoretical observations that paint a broader picture for SA. I argue for an ellipsis analysis in SA and propose analyses for the suffixes ile/=(y)lA and -(y)Ip. My findings indicate that the environment of SA greatly impacts its acceptability. The conjoiner veya ‘or’ has pragmatic implicatures that can hinder SA. On the other hand SA in -(y)Ip constructions might require changes in the information structure. In the literature on Turkish SA, Kabak (2007) provides constraints and Orgun (1995), Kornfilt (2012), Broadwell (2008) provide a lexical sharing analysis. The literature on other languages adopts an ellipsis approach (Guseva & Weisser, 2018; Erschler, 2018). My analysis is more in line with the ellipsis approach, yet it abides by the proposed constraints in the literature. I conducted three experiments. The first (214 participants) investigated if SA of derivational suffixes was acceptable and the second (160 participants) investigated if different amounts of SA changed processing difficulty. Both experiments investigated the effect of a conjoiner choice between ve ‘and’ and veya ‘or’. The third experiment showed that SA can be a testing ground for sentence processing in Turkish. The experiment used an environment dependent on SA and showed effects of Reanalysis and how reanalyzed readings were accessible in further tasks. All the experiment results jointly indicated that the SA environment was more crucial than solely identifying suspendable affixes.
Negative polarity Kimse and free choice Bir Kimse :|a unified semantic analysis
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2020., 2020.) Filiz, Feyza.; Guerzoni, Elena.
The goal of the present dissertation is a semantic study of the Turkish expression Kimse and; specifically, a unified analysis of two apparently distinct Polarity Sensitive Items, namely Negative Polarity and Free Choice Kimse. I show that Kimse is a “Polarity Sensitive” (PS) item with a dual nature. Specifically, I observe that bare Kimse acts like a Negative Polarity Item (NPI) but Kimse preceded by the indefinite determiner Bir ‘a(n)’ is an existential Free Choice (∃-FC) Item. In his analysis of similar phenomena, Chierchia (2013) argues that NPIs and FCIs must belong to a linguistically uniform class and, for that matter, fairly widespread class and proposes a unified analysis of Free choice and Negative Polarity in a variety of Germanic and Romance languages as well as some Slavic ones, namely an Alternative and Exhaustification-based Approach (AEA henceforth). Extending this theory to the dual nature of Kimse, I provide additional support to the idea that Polarity Sensitivity and Free Choice phenomena are related.
A corpus analysis of multiple negation in Turkish
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2019., 2019.) Özbey, Can.; Akar, Didar.
This study investigates double negative constructions (DNCs) in Turkish that incorporate an inner verbal negation followed by an outer sentential negation with respect to their pragmatic properties in a general corpus linguistics framework. In order to find such marked constructions, we have compiled a corpus and conducted a collocational analysis to observe which tense, agreement marker, verbs and discourse markers that follow the sentential negation operator değil are more prevailingly employed in DNCs. The asymmetrical distribution of DNCs in the context of specific grammatical and lexical elements designates the use of multiple negation as a mitigation device. Such contexts in which multiple negation leads to understatement are revealed by an elaborate empirical investigation, which indicates that the use of impersonalization and certain type of lexical elements are significantly affiliated with multiple negation. It is observed that the verbs and the majority of post-değil elements are semantically associated with the cognitive, perceptive or emotive stance of the author. The correlation between impersonalization and particular semantic characteristics of the lexical items constitutes a strong basis in explaining the pragmatic effects of the phenomenon of multiple negation.
Voice in Istanbul Greek
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2020., 2020.) Gülsün, Umut.; Göksel, Aslı.
The present thesis aims at analyzing the language spoken by one of the oldest communities in Istanbul: the Istanbul Greeks (Constantinopolites or the “Rums”). As a morphosyntactic analysis of Istanbul Greek, this research is the first of its kind, and is centered upon data collected from Istanbul Greeks regarding language use. Of course, this thesis focuses on a special aspect of morphosyntax, which is Voice related constructions in Istanbul Greek, such as anticausatives and passives. After an introductory chapter on the sociolinguistics of the Istanbul Greek community, the thesis proceeds with a theoretical discussion of Voice related constructions in Standard Greek, and ends with the analysis of Istanbul Greek data in terms of anticausative and passive constructions. This thesis centers upon language contact between Istanbul Greek and Turkish as a possible reason for the dialectal differences between Istanbul Greek and Standard Greek.
The syntax of focus particles in Turkish
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2019., 2019.) Vurgun, Uğurcan.; Nakipoğlu, Mine.; Özsoy, Sumru.
This study aims to answer three main questions on the syntax of focus particles based on the data in Turkish: (i) Where is the exact location in the phrase structure of Turkish that focus particles are generated? (ii) Are there any subsequent movement operations from Surface Structure to Logical Form that would allow the particle take propositional scope, and if yes what are they? (iii) Is it possible for the particles to modify any non-verbal projections? The analysis covers the scalar additive particles hatta ‘even’ and bile ‘even’, the additive particle dA ‘also’, and the exclusive particle sadece ‘only’. The analysis on the positions and the syntactic domains of the focus particles shows that there are three specific focus projections in the phrase structure of Turkish, and these are phrase-level (vP-internal), clause-level (vP-external) and utterance-level (CP). Negation is assumed to prohibit raising of the focused phrases to clause-level and utterance-level focus projections. Such prohibitions prevent interpretation since all the focused phrases are assumed to be raised to these projections for interpretation. Three specific proposals based on this phrase structure are presented. The first proposal includes the focus particles in the study in affirmative clauses, the second proposal covers the focus particles in negative clauses, and the last proposal presents a syntactic behavior matrix, which includes the scalar additive particles hatta ‘even’ and bile ‘even’ in Turkish, along with even, the scalar additive focus particle in English, and sogar, the scalar additive focus particle in German.
The universal quantifier 'All’ in Turkish sign language
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2019., 2019.) Saral, Burcu.; Kelepir, Meltem.
This thesis aims at investigating the universal quantification in Turkish Sign Language (TİD). Four signs have been investigated. Contrary to the initial hypotheses of this study, not all of the four signs have been identified as expressing universal quantification. Based on the findings, these four signs are glossed as ALL, ALL_OF_THOSE, THOSE and ALL_OF_THOSE^SAME. Based on the findings of grammaticality judgment and picture description tasks with native and non-native signers, I argue in this thesis that three of the signs I investigated express universal quantification: ALL is a universal quantificational determiner. ALL_OF_THOSE is a complex sign having a universal quantificational determiner component, which is expressed by the mouthing of the Turkish word hepsi 'all' and a demonstrative determiner/pronoun, and has a partitive meaning. ALL_OF_THOSE^SAME is an incorporated sign having the handshape of SAME and the movement of ALL_OF_THOSE. The fourth sign, THOSE, which differs from ALL_OF_THOSE only in the absence of mouthing is a plural demonstrative pronoun.
The syntax of information structure in Turkish nominal phrases
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2019., 2019.) Ergelen, Özlem.; Gökgöz, Kadir.
This thesis aims to introduce a novel approach to the internal structure of Turkish nominal phrases by arguing that Turkish encodes information structure inside nominal phrases, possessing layers such as topic and focus. Rizzi’s (1997) left periphery model is adopted as in previous studies on the Split-DP Hypothesis such as Giusti (1996) and Aboh (2004). First of all, it will be argued that Turkish has a DP layer, and the DP is dominated by a Possessive Phrase (PossP). PossP seemingly equals Rizzi’s (1997) Finiteness Phrase (FinP). Above PossP, topic and focus phrases (TopP and FocP) are respectively positioned. DP-internal constituents such as adjectives, numerals and demonstratives move into these projections, depending on their interpretation. The closing projection of nominal phrases is the Case Phrase (KP), adopted from Kornfilt (2003, 2009), which equals the Force Phrase (FP) in Rizzi (1997). It will also be shown that Turkish nominals license a post-nominal position, hosting backgrounded information, akin to post-verbal position (Erguvanlı, 1984). After drawing an outline of a typical Turkish nominal phrase, it will be argued that both the CP and the DP project their own information structure related phrases, and that the nominal complex is able to move into relevant TopP and FocP inside the CP. It will be further shown that there are restrictions concerning the extraction properties of layered nominal phrases. The genitive-marked phrases have relatively more freedom to move out of the KP, whereas other constituents such as demonstratives and adjectives are not accessible for further operations.

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