ABSTRACT
Turkish is the most widely spoken member of the Oghuz branch of Turkic. Modern standard Turkish is the descendant of Ottoman Turkish, developed on the basis of the Istanbul dialect. The Turkish vowel system is characterized by the oppositions front vs. back, high vs. low, and unrounded vs. rounded. Syllable structure is further characterized by intrasyllabic front vs. back harmony, according to which syllables are lexically marked as either front or back. The principle of intersyllabic front vs. back harmony means that syllables within a phonological word form are either all front or back. The distribution of dynamic stress, marked with ' in front of the syllable, is less predictable. Turkish morphology is characterized by its synthetic nature providing rich possibilities for expanding primary stems by means of a large number of relatively unchangeable and clear-cut suffixes with rather clearly definable semantic functions.
