Morphological and Lexical Contrastive Analysis of Turkish and English

Dr. Irbrahim Abushihab

Volume 12 Issue 1

Global Journal of Human-Social Science

This study explores the differences and similarities between Turkish and English in the areas of morphology and lexical meaning. The discussion leads to different major conclusions. Personal endings(-im(I),-sin(you/singular),-dir(he,she,it),-iz(we),-siniz(you/plural),-ler(they) which stand for (Be) and (NP subject) in Turkish are attached to nouns and adjectives as the following examples:Ben Ŏğretmenim /ben əʊretmenım/ ((- im) attached to noun)I + teacher +personal suffix stands for Be (-im) (I am ateacher)BenHastay׀m /ben hæstæjəm/ ((- m) attached to adjective)I + sick+(y) buffer sound between two vowels+personal suffix stands for Be(-im) (I am sick) Ben (I) in both examples could be omitted without changing the meaning because of the personal endings as follows: Ŏğretmenim / əʊretmenım/ teacher +personal suffix (-im) stands for Be and the subject (I am a teacher) The personal endings stated above are attached to the word "değil" /deɣıl/(not) to make the present tense "Be" negative as the following example: Ben hasta değilim/ben hæstæ deɣılım/ I +sick +negative morpheme (değil)+personal suffix stands for Be (-im) (I am not sick.) Such conclusions are helpful in language teaching materials, syllabuses and test construction.