Çoktan Belirtecinin Anlamsal Özellikleri Üzerine

Abstract

This paper discusses the semantics and pragmatics of the adverb çoktan 'already' in Turkish. The basic argument is that çoktan seems to express three closely related temporal/aspectual concepts, namely (i) (relative) temporal anteriority, (ii) (subjective) temporal distance and (iii) realized change of state. It is also illustrated that there is co­operation among Turkish aspectual adverbs daha şimdiden, zaten, bile and çoktan in sharing amongst themselves the multiple (temporal and non-temporal) meanings borne by the English 'already and the German 'schori. It is suggested that this behavior of Turkish may derive from the underspecified tense/aspect/modality marking on the predicates which requires recourse to highly specific adverbs for a proper aspectual interpretation. In contrast, in languages where tense/aspect/modality morphology is unambiguous, the adverbs might be polysemous, and thus capable of expressing various temporal and non-temporal meanings depending on the morphology with which they co-occur.