CONVERBS АND COMPOUND CONVERB FORMATION IN THE TURKISH DIALECTS OF NORTH MACEDONİA

Abstract

Adverbial Verbs, also known as converbs or gerunds, are words derived from verb-based roots and stems, and function to qualify verbs in various ways. In Turkish, adverbial verbs are verbal nouns frequently used and carry significant roles in both syntactic and semantic contexts. These structures are formed by adding suffixes such as -AsI, -A, -Ar...-mAz, -ken, -Ip, -mAdAn, -IncA, -Elİ, -dIkçA, -IncA, etc., to verb roots and stems. In a sentence, their function is to describe verbs in terms of time, quantity, manner, place-direction, and interrogative aspects. They are used only in the role of adverbs; although they carry verbal meaning, they do not take tense or mood inflections. By forming subordinate clauses, they function as explanatory units for the main clause. The formation and usage of adverbial verbs and adverbial verb groups in Turkish may vary across dialects. The aim of this study is to identify the methods of forming adverbial verbs and adverbial verb groups in the Turkish spoken in North Macedonia and to examine these methods comparatively with Turkey Turkish. For this analysis, qualitative research methods such as document analysis and survey technique were employed. As the data source, folk tales compiled from local people in Sevim Piliçkoava’s "The Structure of Turkish Fairy Tales, Book III" were used. Folk tales are among the most productive research materials as they reflect the natural language usage and dialectal features of the people. Within the scope of the study, notable findings were obtained regarding the usage of adverbial verb suffixes identified in the texts. While some adverbial verb-forming suffixes are used in the same form, some have undergone phonetic changes, and some are observed to be entirely unused. These findings reveal both the similarities and the dialect-specific differences between the dialects of North Macedonian Turkish and Turkey Turkish. Thus, the study aims to contribute to further research on these dialectal features.