NOTES ON THE OLD TURKISH VERB ARKA- “TO SEEK…” AND ITS SEMANTIC FIELD

Abstract

The verb arka-, whose meaning was only recorded in Old Turkish as "to search, to investigate", has many unrecorded meanings. Some of these meanings are recorded in later historical and contemporary dialects. Some of them can be identified thanks to the derivatives of the verb. Although the connection between some derivatives of the verb arka- has been mentioned in a few studies, these words have not been associated with each other in most of the studies. According to the data in historical and contemporary dialects, it is understood that the verb arka- has the following meanings: 1. to pass through. 2. to pass between, to extend or place an object between two things. 3. to support, help. 4. to lie diagonally or transversely between two things. 5. to line up in a row. 6. to thread, weave. 7. to send. 8. to follow. 9. to seek, to investigate. The verb arka- is derived from the verb Old Turkish *ar- “to pass through”, with the suffix -kA-, which carries an intensifying function. The core meaning of the verb *ar- and arka- is the same. All meanings of the verb have emerged from the meaning of "to pass through". It has not been clarified whether the verb ara-, which survives in the Oghuz group Turkish dialects today, and the verb arka- which is recorded as Oghuz in DLT, are the same verb, due to the fact that the *arga- intermediate form in the development of arka- > *arga- > ara- has not been detected in any Turkish dialect to date. In addition, in dialects that preserve long vowels, the first vowel of the verb ara- is long, while in derivatives of the verb arka- such as arkış, argaç, the first vowel is short. For these reasons, it does not seem possible to determine with certainty whether the verbs arka- and ara- are the same verb.

Keywords: Old Turkish; Oghuz Turkish; arka-; ara-.