on the loss of the izafet construction in uzbek handout

8/13/2019 On the Loss of the Izafet Construction in Uzbek handout

1/8

Proceedings of the 2003 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society 1

On the Loss of the Izafet Suffix in Uzbek

In Uzbek, as in other Turkic languages, a noun which is modified by another noungenerally must take the rd !erson !ossessi"e ending #i$#si, as shown in %1a#d&' in %1e& we

see an exam!le of a (true) !ossessi"e construction, with the first noun in the geniti"e* Thisis known as the izafetconstruction*

%1& a* O+zbek tili Uzbek language+b* xal- muzi-asi folk music+c* idora ishchisi office worker+d* rok kontserti rock concert+e* .redning tele"isori .red+s tele"ision+ %/wde et al* 0021#13&

In %0& and %& are -uotes from some grammars of Uzbek on this2

%0& (4ouns in the nominati"e case are used attributi"ely to modify other nouns* In suchconstructions the noun modified has the !ossessi"e suffix of the third !erson*)%5o!!e 1670211&

%& (1* Indefinite noun modifiers*In 8nglish one says birthday+, in the summertime+, railroad station+, etc* In Uzbekit is not so sim!le* 9om!are2

tu:ilgan born kun day tu:ilgan kuni birthday1

yz summer wa-t time yz wa-tida in the summertime

;aun %ibid*2?& states, (The second noun hasto carry the third !erson !ossessi"e suffix, as with indefinite noun modifiers), reinforcingthe necessity for this to ha!!en*0

1This one is a bit strange, since the modifier is not a noun* In /wde et al* %002?0& this is gi"en as tuilgan

kun, i*e* without the ending, although in Bhakimo" %166321C3& it is gi"en %in 9yrillic& with it*0>aun here gi"es an exam!le with both indefinite and definite modifiers, qilq setining sekretari, anddiscusses the difference between them2 (The first construction is indefinite D the council of a"illage, that is,


2/8


Eowe"er, in the contem!orary language this ending is sometimes omitted, as in factwe ha"e seen with railroad* In this !a!er we in"estigate whether there are !atterns orregularities in"ol"ed in this omission, using largely names of !ublic and commercialinstitutions and to!onyms* This omission is not always mentioned in grammars of Uzbek,

as shown in %0&, and by the fact that Ismatulla %166?21?1& says, (Fhen the !ossessor isex!ressed by a noun, the suffix #GHG may be missed, as in JK,KM%GHG& NKMKPH, butsays nothing, at least on this !age about lea"ing our the #H* Of course this might beex!lained by the fact that this is a !edagogical grammar, and so !erha!s !rescri!ti"e* %4otealso that the term (!ossessor) is a bit odd here*&

4ote the !assage in %3& and %?&, the latter about the /ndi@an dialect2

%3& (0* The noun acts as an ad@ecti"e and indicates -uality or !ur!ose with res!ect tothe head or is a geogra!hical name* The head usually carries a !ossessi"e suffix inthe rd !erson singular omanal!habet, and !re"iously used the 9yrillic al!habet, and before that the >oman al!habet,and before that the /rabic al!habet* In addition, some grammars, such as S@oberg+s, use

some kind of transcri!tion rather than the 9yrillic al!habet* I will take the exam!les inwhate"er orthogra!hy or transcri!tion is used by the source*&

The exam!les gi"en under !oint * are those in %W&2

%W& a* nazar !arta 4azar+s desk+b* makta! deraza school window+c* V -zn kettle for cooking %meat or !ila"&+d* :iVt dewr brick wall+e* taxta !l wooden floor+

of any "illage' in the latter exam!le, a !articular council and its secretary are meant*


3/8

Proceedings of the 2003 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society

I wonder why nazaris not in the geniti"e in %Wa& %which then would cause #artato ha"ethe izafet suffix, acc* to what S@oberg seems to indicate on the next !age ;are therecountrexx from other sourcesX D a!! only with !ers !ronouns in >aun' another source maymention family members, and Furm %16W3260& has an family member ex* without it*=&;Furm ibid* has a !oss* ex* without the izafet suffix, bride#youngster+= Eowe"er, the

def,$indef issue %i*e* the gen$nom* difference is not what I am examining here&*

In this !a!er I begin to examine whether there are any regularities or !atterns in the loss ofthe izafet ending in Uzbek* This is !art of more general work on this to!ic in Turkiclanguages* /t least in Turkish the loss$retention seems to be de!endent on se"eral factors,including !erha!s !honetics* On street signs in Turkey and Turkish 9y!rus, and on ma!s,one often finds the ending missing, thus we will find noun # sokak instead of noun # soka:Y*Eowe"er this does not ha!!en with names of a"enues and boule"ards, nor did I e"er see iton street signs in Tashkent* / reason for the Turkish facts was suggested to me2 theaddition of the suffix to sokak is more com!licated than to cadde a"enue+ or $ul%arboule"ard+ since the consonant changes* The Uzbek word for street is ko&chaand the form

with the ending is ko&chasiD thus again no consonant change is in"ol"ed* Similarly, inUfa, the ca!ital of ashkortostan in the >ussian .ederation, I ne"er recall ha"ing seen theending left out on street signs, and again the word for street, '()*, does not ha"e anyconsonantal change when it takes the ending* The same is true of the /zerbai@ani word,k+,* 4ow, it could well be that in these other Turkic languages the loss of izafet is lessad"anced than in Turkish, but gi"en the facts within Turkish, one could claim that

!honetics !lays a role*

%C& Turkish2 sokak soka:YUzbek2 ko+cha ko+chasiashkir2 ZMKN ZMKN[

One !rocedure I shall follow in this !a!er is to com!are what I saw on street signs, etc* inUzbekistan to what I find by doing internet searches for the same names* I ha"e used theinternet as a cor!us, by ty!ing !hrases into search engines* In this way one can use acor!us which is large %one ho!es& and searchable* /nother !otential ad"antage is thatlanguage used on the internet may be more collo-uial or less consciously determined by

!rescri!ti"e norms than say, literary works*

One might start by seeing what ha!!ens with names of streets* / !roblem with this methodof searching %or any kind of electronic searching& is that I can only look for one street, etc*

name in a single web search* it is thus not !ractical to search for what ha!!ens to all streetnames, but one would ho!e to get some sort of idea of what ha!!ens* /nother !ossiblecom!licating factor is that the switch from 9yrillic to >oman was fairly recent, so oneshould search with both al!habets* /nother !ossible !roblem is that the word for streetin"ol"es a non#>ussian letter, which means that some web !ages might not use it* The

!roblem for the >oman al!habet searches is that the word has o+, and the a!ostro!he seemsto lead to some !roblems* I used the Roogle search engine %and !hrase searches&*

/ search for GZZ\ ]^K\H and for GZZ\ ]^K turned u! nothing %this is a fairly largestreet in Tashkent, but there is at least one other street by this name, and !robably more, inUzbekistan&* / search for ]^K\H alone ga"e 3 hits* I then searched for _P`H\G

]^K\H, and only got two hits, both from the same site* _P`H\G ]^K yielded no hits*4ow trying in >oman, 4ukus Bochasi ga"e ? hits, but two of these were in 8nglish, and


4/8


one was in .rench* 4ukus ko+cha ga"e hits, but these were again from an 8nglishlanguage sources, a!!arently from the same re!ort, with at least this slight change %It might

be interesting to study what ha!!ens to izafet in Uzbek to!onyms, etc* in foreign languagetexts, but that is beyond the sco!e of this !a!er*& %Roogle can be set to only get results insome languages, but Uzbek is not one of those languages*& Ozbekiston Bochasi ga"e 01

hits %some from the same sites, and from now on I will not note this if it ha!!ens&*Ozbekiston Bocha) did not gi"e any hits* One more street2 (4a"oiy kochasi) yieldedsome hits, 4a"oiy kocha did not yield any*

If we looked at street names alone, it would seem that there is 1& no loss of the ending%unlike with street names in Turkish&, and 0& total regularity* Eowe"er, if we look at namesof banks, a different !icture emerges* In Tahskent I noticed signs for two banks al- ankiliterally 5eo!le ank+, with the suffix, and 5axta ank 9otton ank+, without the suffix*%Fhile doing the street name web search described before, I found the site for the latter

bank, and the addresses for different branches all had the suffix on ko+cha, so it is not thecase that the !eo!le associated with that bank lea"e off the suffix*&* y co#author

suggested or said that the reason was %translating into R ty!e terms& that there was asemantic role relation between xal- and bank %!ossession or something&, while there wasnone between !axta and bank, and that this was the reason for the difference* Eowe"er, Ialso saw signs, etc* for the /saka ank both with and without the suffix, and two were onthe same !ost

Turning now to web searches for bank names, 5axta ank yielded 1W hits %though one wasin 8nglish&, 5axta anki did not yield any* 4ow, another factor making things morecom!licated is that Uzbek is a case language, and the searches I ha"e re!orted on so farwere only for the nominati"e forms of the names* / nati"e s!eaker of Uzbek, to whom Ishowed the /saka ank !ole suggested that maybe the difference had to do with whetherthe name was in a sentence or in isolation, !erha!s in a sentence there is more of atendency to ha"e the ending* Therefore, if we searched for the name in a case other than inthe nominati"e %the citation form&, where the likelihood of occurring in a sentence might

be higher, we might be more likely to find exam!les of e*g* 5axta anki* / search for thedati"e 5axta ankga ga"e one hit, 5axta ankiga none, for the geniti"e 5axta ankningyielded one, 5axta ankining none, two for !axta bankda, none for !axta bankida, one for

!axta bankdan, none for !axta bankidan* I got no hits for the accusati"e form of either"ersion*

4ow for 9yrillic "ersions of some of the abo"e2 The 9yrllic KKc jKG ga"e far more

hits than the >oman "ersion, 17, butmany or most of these were in >ussian* There wasone hit for KK `KGH, gi"en in %6&*

%6& P GK`KHK, Tapa NGHKG M\Z`HKNHP HJ ZpKH MGKKMHGH pK` HHGKGMHpHq MH qZGKHJKMH H\`HKG NHKJK MPHH K HJG^`HHMH*%htt!2$$@ahon*mfa*uz$Uzbek$SIOS/T$f0110*htm, accessed 0$6$&

The strange thing here is that elsewhere in the same !age, KKc jKG occurs a goodnumber of times, in the nom and the gen*, as shown in %1&, as well as in the dati"e2
http://jahon.mfa.uz/Uzbek/SIYOSAT/f2112.htmhttp://jahon.mfa.uz/Uzbek/SIYOSAT/f2112.htm


5/8

Proceedings of the 2003 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society ?

%1& KZNH, JZ qHGHG #3 G`M ZGKMH qKHNHP vJGK H `MGHG jJ \\KN`\H ZKPHH* vKJH^H\H `ZKGNKPZM \\KN` `Hq # H\` `ZqH^K ZHPHG^H qHHHJH {KGHHGHKHK KHKJ pHPHM* P`H\GGHG \\KN`GH ZKPHJNKNKKH {H` `HKGKGHH {\K KKM NKqGKH

NKHGHG K`MK \KH` `MK|KGHHKG KKHM* %ibid*&

One might guess that the reason why the suffix a!!ears in %6& is that it is !receded, earlierin the same line, by an instance of jKG with the suffix %the de"elo!ment etc* bank&, andthis influenced it* Eowe"er the same sort of situation occurs earlier on the !age, shown in%11&, and !axta bank does not ha"e the suffix* Eowe"er, here the earlier form is in thegeniti"e, and so not the same form as the bare banki, and so maybe this is the reason forthe lack of influence*

%11& jZGKG KJKMH, KN HPHNHGHMHpKGHHMHJK KpMKKG MKGH, < %ibid*&

One thing this text shows us is that %a!!arently& same author can "ary between bank andbanki, although it may not "ary with other !articular banks' in %10& is another extract withinstances of bank* Itmay in"ol"e, at least for this author, the difference between commercial banks, andgo"ernment or non#commercial ones such as the /sia Ae"elo!ment ank*

%10& jZKM KMHK vH H\Z`HJH jKG, }KZMK jKG%~GH&, q^jKG, 4BS %GG&, qP KGG `KG, }HH `KG%& oman, and all cases, I found only one exam!le of 5axta banki on the internet*Fe could say that there is a lexical le"el regularity, lea"ing aside the one exce!tion, forthis bank to not ha"e the ending, whate"er the reason for it might be* %In the Uzbeklanguage "ersion of the bank+s own !age the suffix is not !resent on the name of the bank,at least on the to! le"el !age&*

4ow let us look at al- anki, whose name, recall, I saw with the izafet ending*

K jKG actually got more hits than K jKGH, 1 as o!!osed to C, but all of theformer and 3 of the latter in >ussian* I4 addition, at least two of the former were about adifferent bank, the NHM K jKG, which is, I belie"e, based in another Turkicre!ublic* Thus there were no Uzbek 9yrillic exam!les of K jKG without the ending*

Eowe"er another issue is that the last letter of K is a non#>ussian letter, and I do notha"e it among the fonts on my com!uter, so I could not search for the name with that letter,only with the %Findows 0, and hence !resumably 6C, does not ha"e su!!ort foruzbek 9yrillic&, though in fact I ha"e not seen the 9yrillic - in html to my knowledge* =

So, let us confine our consideration to >oman Uzbek here* al- banki gets 6 hits, but three

are in 8nglish and al- banki in these !ages refers to a dacha, not the bank There were nohits with al- ank* %To make things more confusing, there were ? hits for xal-bank, as


6/8


one word, but most of these seemed to be /zerbai@ani !ages referring to a Turkish bank,though one was for %I think& the bank in Uzbekistan, but that !age was in 8nglish* Therewere no hits for xal-baki&* 4o hits for dati"e of either "ersion or geniti"e, accusati"e,ablati"e, or locati"e of either "ersion*

So, it seems that there is consistency with at least these two bank names, one almostalways without the ending, the other always without %although I cannot say for sites withthe correct cyrillic - letter in halk, if there are any such sites&*

To sum u! the "ariability with bank names consider the list in %1&, although the first one isnot rele"ant, since the first word of the name is an ad@ecti"e2

%1& undan tash-ari, .argona "odiysidagi barcha banklar bilan alo-a boglagan*umladan,

illiy bankal- banki/saka bankSanoat#-urilish banki %htt!2$$fer!i*dem*ru$uzb$ekonom*htm, accessed0$6$&

The abo"e searches were done on 0$6$, the following ones on 0$6$&2

4ow let us look at the bank name in which I saw "ariability in Tashkent, the /saka ank*This is a new bank %166?&, so one might ex!ect it to be more likely to ha"e lost the izafetending if the !rocess of loss in !rogressing, though the 5axhta ank is fairly new also, asmost Uzbek banks !robably are* / search for >oman (/saka ank) on 0 Se!t* yielded

CW hits, but a large !ercentage seem to be in 8nglish %based on the first !age of hits&, andin fact the first hit was in >ussian, the last hit was in Rerman D in fact there were no Uzbeklanguage hits on the first !age D I had to go to the 3th !age to find a hit in Uzbek, and by

!age 11 had not seen another one %though there were a cou!le Turkish ones& %One !ossiblereason why I did not ha"e so much of a !roblem with non#Uzbek languages sites for the5axta ank is that its name could be s!elled differently in 8nglish D 5akhta ank, likewisefor the al- ank&* Aati"e, geniti"e, accusati"e, locati"e, dati"e "ersions yielded no hits'these would ha"e filtered out the non#Uzbek sites*

/ search for (/saka anki) yielded only 0 hits %and only one on an earlier search for thesame !hrase&, both in Uzbek, but gi"en the "ery large !ercentage of non#Uzbek hits for thesuffixless "ariant, we cannot make anything of the ratio* The dati"e, ablati"e, and locati"e"ersions yielded none, the accusati"e one* In all three of these hits, (/saka) was in -uotemarks for some reason, I do not know whether this is the cause of the izafet ending*

4ow for 9yrillic searches, which might get rid of the 8nglish, german,and Turkish, butallow more >ussian* .or \KK jKG somethng odd ha!!ened, the engine said 0??, butthere only seemed to be 1W0, which makes some of the earlier result numbers sus!ect* Onthe first !age, all were in >ussian, exce!t one was in 8nglish %when it was not gi"ingnames in >ussian&* In fact I did not notice any Uzbek language hits, though I did not lookat all the !ages* I got no hits for \KK jKGH, which makes one think that the great

ma@ority, if not all, discussion of this bank in Uzbek is in >oman, !erha!s because it is anewer bankX
http://ferpi.dem.ru/uzb/ekonom.htmhttp://ferpi.dem.ru/uzb/ekonom.htm


7/8


8/8

Proceedings of the 2003 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society C

If we try another institute, molya instituti finance institute+ ga"e 7, but one a!! in >usian,without the suffix no hits* One for dati"e with, none without* Two for loc* with, nonewithout* 4o hits for geniti"e, albati"e or acc* either with or without*

as for the 9yrillic NH HG\HZH, 6 hits, none without suffix

two for geniti"e NH HG\HZHGHG, none without suffix*none for acc with or without, none for dati"e with or without*one for loc with, none withoutnone for locati"e with or without*

so, with all these combinations, I ne"er found institut without the suffix*

The "ery !reliminary results are gi"en in the table below

ko+cha always with suffixbank sometimes with, sometimes without, but regularity with some %not all& !articular

banksmarkaz not a lot of data, but not non#hy!henated exam!les without suffixistitut always with suffix

On other ty!es of head words D many hits for o+zbek tili, none for o+zbek til*

/s in Turkish there is "ariation, but also regularities* I ha"e some e"idence of the loss ofthe suffix in /zeri %yol !olis "s* !olisi&, and I may ha"e obser"ed one or two instances inashkir*

on the loss of the izafet construction in uzbek handout

Documents