QUESTION WITH INTONATION IN MANUSCRIPTS BELONGING TO HISTORICAL PERIODS OF TURKISH: THE CASE OF TEZKIRE-I SHEIKH SAFI

Abstract

The question meaning in Turkish sentences; is provided with question words and stress/tone/intonation. It is easy to identify the question sentences in written sources formed by interrogative particle or question word. However, in written texts, it is more difficult to determine the question sentences in which the meaning of the question is given by the prosodic features of verbal language such as stress/tone/intonation. A sentence made without an interrogative particle or a question word but have the meaning of a question, provides the meaning of the question not only by the emphasis and intonation of a word, but also by combining the tone and stress of all the words in the sentence. For this reason, intonation term must be used for this prosodic feature that adds question meaning to a sentence without an interrogative particle or a question word. In Turkish, the question sentences made with intonation can be divided into two such as questions meaningfully waiting for an answer (real) and questions not waiting for an answer (nominal). In this study, as a case study, (real) question sentences waiting to be answered that are formed with the question intonation in Tezkire-i Sheikh Safi which is a manuscript translated into Turkish in the field of Azerbaijan in the XVI. century were determined. In Tezkire-i Sheikh Safi, samples of two types of (real) questions meaningfully waiting for an answer such as yes-no with intonation and selective questions with intonation were identified. In addition, examples of the questions that had been composed with the intonation in the historical texts of Turkish were presented for the first time.

Keywords

• intonation
• interrogative sentence
• tezkire-i sheikh safi
• azerbaijan turkish