This paper is concerned with the syntax and semantics of the Turkish pronominal element kendisi ‘self.3SG’ that has so far received very little attention in the literature on anaphoric relations. We start out by examining the properties of this pronoun proceeding next to discuss the few existing proposals highlighting their inadequacies when con…[Read more]

The present contribution follows up on Rudnev (2011). It is for this reason that I omit most of the arguments for the pronominal nature of kendisi and
present a formalisation of its semantic properties based on Partee (1983) and Elbourne (2008).

This paper documents a number of restrictions on negation marking in Avar, a Northeast Caucasian language, and presents a tentative analysis of the observed morphosyntactic facts as having a semantic basis. The two different negation markers are analysed, based on the proposal in (Ramchand & Svenonius 2014), as taking complements of a different…[Read more]

This paper claims that the scope properties of the Russian disjunction marker ili correlate with the phrasal vs. clausal nature of the disjunction: phrasal disjunction yields narrow scope whilst clausal disjunction yields wide scope. In so doing, we introduce novel empirical generalisations that are problematic for purely semantic analyses of…[Read more]

This paper discusses two morphologically related anaphoric pronouns in Avar (Avar-Andic, Nakh-Daghestanian) and proposes that one of them should be treated as a minimal pronoun that receives its interpretation from a λ-operator situated on a phasal head whereas the other is a logophoric pronoun denoting the author of the reported event.

The present doctoral thesis examines the syntax and semantics of a number of constructions encoding operator-variable dependencies in Avar, a Northeast Caucasian language predominantly spoken in the Republic of Daghestan in the Russian Federation. In doing so it touches upon such empirical domains as reflexivity and anaphoricity, argument…[Read more]

A paper published in the Vangelis Kechriotis special issue of Toplumsal Tarih (August 2016, no: 272). Edited by Ece Zerman.

“Tarihçi Kechriotis’in Tarihini Yazmak: Bir Başlangıç, Bir Deneme” (Writing the History of Kechriotis, the Historian: A Beginning, an Essay). Toplumsal Tarih 272 (August 2016): 54-56.

Tarihçi Vangelis Kechriot…[Read more]

Kentel, K. (2017). Charles King. Midnight at the Pera Palace: The Birth of Modern Istanbul. New York: W.W. Norton, 2014, xiv 476 pages. New Perspectives on Turkey, 57, 146-150. doi:10.1017/npt.2017.34

Published in Youssouf Bey: Charged Portraits of Fin-de-Siècle Beyoğlu, edited by Bahattin Öztuncay, 63-79. Istanbul: Vehbi Koç Vakfı, 2016.

In 2014, the Turkish National Education Council recommending teaching Ottoman Turkish as a mandatory subject in all high schools. Since that time, this historical register of the Turkish language has been making a popular comeback. This is especially true online, where participants are creating and sharing new content written in Ottoman. This…[Read more]