Abstract
ON THE INTENSIFIED WORD “TAMTAKIR”
In Turkish words are intensified by sounds (stress, consonant duplication, epenthesis, lenghting of vowel, adding an initial syllable), by suffixes (+An, +CAK, -dek, +-DIr, +-DUr, -GIl, +KInyA, +lAr, +mAn, +rAK, +TI, +-U, +z), by word order. One of the ways to intensify a word is to add an initial syllable obtained by closing the first sylabble of the word with one of consonants p,m,r,s. The word “tamtakır” is one of such words.
In Turkey Turkish intensified word “tamtakır” has the meaning of “the state of emptiness, lack of something that should contain.”. “tamtakır” has also configurated uses such as tamtakır kuru (veya kırmızı) bakır “empty, quite empty”, tamtakır olmak “the state of not containing what is necessary”. Kirghiz Turkish has the examples of taptakırçak “completely naked, very clean”, taptakır “entirely, totally”.
This intensified word is claimed to be derived from so-called mimetic word ‘takır’. However with mimetic words, reduplication can not be made by repeating similar syllables. The Word ‘takır’ is used in the meaning of ‘drying and cracking of the soil’ in the sub-dialects of Turkey Turkish, in the meaning of ‘barren, without any plants’ in Kirghiz Turkish, ‘takır yıl’ is used in the meaning of ‘infertile year’ in subdialects of Uzbek Turkish, as takur in the meaning of ‘ dessert with plain and hard soil’, as takir in the meaning of ‘ the one on which nothing can be grown and the one without any hair’ in Kashgar and Yarkend subdialects, as takır in the meaning of ‘ bare, plantless’ in Altai Turkish, as tahır in the meaning of ‘ barren, without any flora’ in Hakas Turkish, as tahaarııta suox, tuhata suox in the meaning of ‘infertile’ in Yakut Turkish.
The root of this Word ‘tak’ in the meaning of ‘lack, absent, empty, bare’ can be seen in modern and historical Turkish dialects: as taú ‘drudgery’ in Uigur Turkish, as dag ~ êag ‘lack, none, un-’ in Dîvânu Lugâti’t-Türk, as daġ, êaġ ‘lack, none, un-’ in Sub-Line Quran Traslation in Kharahanid Turkish, as tak cer ‘barren and grassless place’ in Altai Turkish, as tak ‘clear, clearly, definite, certain, complete, concrete’ in Kirghiz Turkish, as tak / takah ‘in vain, useless, for nothing’ in Chuvash Turkish, as taak ‘for nothing’ in Yakut Turkish.
Keywords
takır, değil, tekin, tak, dag, tek.