Revisiting verbal reflexivity: On the morphosyntax and argument structure of IN derived verbs in Turkish

Authors

Zeynep Erdemir
İstanbul Medeniyet University
https://orcid.org/0009-0000-5704-9444
Umit Atlamaz
Boğaziçi University
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1657-9654
Omer Demirok
Boğaziçi University
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2536-5247

Synopsis

In Turkish, verbal reflexives are formed with two different suffixes, -Il and -In, as observed in the literature. It has been argued that of these verbs, those derived with the suffix -Il express only figure reflexivity; while reflexives derived with the suffix -In express ground reflexivity (Key, 2021, 2025). We observe that the -In suffix appears in two additional contexts: (i) in building figure reflexivity and (ii) in some unergative verbs that do not express any reflexivity. Based on these observations, we propose that the -In suffix is ​​essentially a realization of a verbal head that does not introduce arguments. These non-argument-introducing verbal heads emerge within the context of a head, which we call Ref and propose to be subject to contextual allosemy.

Keywords: Verbal reflexivity, Voice, Turkish

Author Biographies

Zeynep Erdemir, İstanbul Medeniyet University

Zeynep Erdemir graduated from the Department of Linguistics at Boğaziçi University. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree at the same university. She works as a research assistant at Istanbul Medeniyet University. 

Umit Atlamaz, Boğaziçi University

Dr. Ümit Atlamaz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Boğaziçi University. He earned his B.A. with High Honors in Foreign Language Education (with a minor in Linguistics) in 2009 and his M.A. in Linguistics in 2012, both from Boğaziçi University. He completed his Ph.D. in Linguistics at Rutgers University in 2019 with a dissertation titled "Agreement, Case, and Nominal Licensing," chaired by Mark C. Baker. Prior to his current academic appointment, he worked as a linguist and analytical linguist at Facebook and Google from 2018 to 2021. His primary research interests encompass morphosyntax (agreement, case, ergativity, differential object marking), semantics, and Natural Language Processing (ontologies, sentiment analysis, natural language inference)

Omer Demirok, Boğaziçi University

Dr. Ömer Faruk Demirok is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Boğaziçi University. He currently serves as the Vice-Chair of the department (since 2022) and the Coordinator for Caucasian Languages (since 2021). He earned his B.A. in Foreign Language Education, alongside a Certificate in Linguistics, from Boğaziçi University in 2010, followed by an M.A. in Linguistics from the same institution in 2013. In 2019, he received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with his dissertation titled "Scope Theory Revisited: Lessons from pied-piping in wh-questions". His primary research interests lie at the intersection of morphosyntax (argument structure, case, agreement) and formal semantics (scope, intensionality, wh-semantics). His work focuses extensively on Turkish, South Caucasian languages, and endangered languages.

Published

December 31, 2025

How to Cite

Erdemir, Z., Atlamaz, U., & Demirok, O. (2025). Revisiting verbal reflexivity: On the morphosyntax and argument structure of IN derived verbs in Turkish . In O. Cinar, F. Başbuğ, & H. Aydemir (Eds.), & (Ed.), Contemporary Studies in Linguistics I (Vol. I, pp. 117-146). Artsurem Publishing. https://doi.org/10.7816/imuling-15-2025-01X006