Presented to you through Paradigm Publishing Services

John Benjamins Publishing Company

Visit our Partner Page See all our books
Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

On the distribution of the contrastive-concessive discourse connectives ama ‘but/yet’ and fakat ‘but’ in written Turkish

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the similarities and differences between two contrastive-concessive discourse connectives in written Turkish, namely ama ‘but/yet’ and fakat ‘but’. The analysis is mainly based on Turkish Discourse Bank, a corpus annotated for discourse connectives and the discourse units they relate. A modular approach to discourse is adopted in the study, where the connectives are analyzed considering the characteristics of their arguments, their position in the sentence, the senses they convey, and how they are distributed across genres. The analyses are carried out quantitatively and qualitatively. One of the major findings of the study is that ama signals concession and pragmatic interpretations more readily than fakat does, suggesting that ama has a better ability to access inferences in discourse. The study also finds that while ama is the preferred discourse connective of fiction, fakat is the preferred discourse connective of more formal genres (e.g. research papers, monographs).

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the similarities and differences between two contrastive-concessive discourse connectives in written Turkish, namely ama ‘but/yet’ and fakat ‘but’. The analysis is mainly based on Turkish Discourse Bank, a corpus annotated for discourse connectives and the discourse units they relate. A modular approach to discourse is adopted in the study, where the connectives are analyzed considering the characteristics of their arguments, their position in the sentence, the senses they convey, and how they are distributed across genres. The analyses are carried out quantitatively and qualitatively. One of the major findings of the study is that ama signals concession and pragmatic interpretations more readily than fakat does, suggesting that ama has a better ability to access inferences in discourse. The study also finds that while ama is the preferred discourse connective of fiction, fakat is the preferred discourse connective of more formal genres (e.g. research papers, monographs).

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of contributors vii
  4. Preface ix
  5. Introduction xi
  6. I. Verbal Categories and Processes in Categorizations
  7. The tense-aspect system of Khorchin Mongolian 3
  8. Locational and directional relations and tense and aspect marking in Chalkan, a South Siberian Turkic language 67
  9. Conspiring motivations for causative and passive isomorphism: 91
  10. II. Syntactic Functions and Case-Marking
  11. Spatial semantics, case and relator nouns in Evenki 111
  12. A survey of alignment features in the Greater Hindukush with special references to Indo-Aryan 133
  13. Between predicative and attributive possession in Bashkir 175
  14. III. Clause Combining and Discourse
  15. Areal features of copula sentences in Karaim as spoken in Lithuania 205
  16. Non-past copular markers in Turkish 221
  17. On the distribution of the contrastive-concessive discourse connectives ama ‘but/yet’ and fakat ‘but’ in written Turkish 251
  18. Anaphora in Ossetic correlatives and the typology of clause combining 275
  19. Kinds of evidentiality in German complement clauses 311
  20. Evidentiality in Dzungar Tuvan 339
  21. IV. Historical Issues
  22. On the evolution of Russian subject reference 381
  23. The development of negation in the Transeurasian languages 401
  24. List of Index 421
On Diversity and Complexity of Languages Spoken in Europe and North and Central Asia
This chapter is in the book On Diversity and Complexity of Languages Spoken in Europe and North and Central Asia
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.164.09zey

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of contributors vii
  4. Preface ix
  5. Introduction xi
  6. I. Verbal Categories and Processes in Categorizations
  7. The tense-aspect system of Khorchin Mongolian 3
  8. Locational and directional relations and tense and aspect marking in Chalkan, a South Siberian Turkic language 67
  9. Conspiring motivations for causative and passive isomorphism: 91
  10. II. Syntactic Functions and Case-Marking
  11. Spatial semantics, case and relator nouns in Evenki 111
  12. A survey of alignment features in the Greater Hindukush with special references to Indo-Aryan 133
  13. Between predicative and attributive possession in Bashkir 175
  14. III. Clause Combining and Discourse
  15. Areal features of copula sentences in Karaim as spoken in Lithuania 205
  16. Non-past copular markers in Turkish 221
  17. On the distribution of the contrastive-concessive discourse connectives ama ‘but/yet’ and fakat ‘but’ in written Turkish 251
  18. Anaphora in Ossetic correlatives and the typology of clause combining 275
  19. Kinds of evidentiality in German complement clauses 311
  20. Evidentiality in Dzungar Tuvan 339
  21. IV. Historical Issues
  22. On the evolution of Russian subject reference 381
  23. The development of negation in the Transeurasian languages 401
  24. List of Index 421
Downloaded on 10.4.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1075/slcs.164.09zey/html
Scroll to top button