Abstract
CHANGES THAT REQUIRE MORE EFFORT IN THE TURKISH LANGUAGE
The words from the earliest data of the Turkish language are striking in that they have undergone significant changes when comparing them to their current forms. Language, as a communication tool, chooses the path with least amount of effort to be able to fulfill the communication function as soon as possible. It is possible to link the sound changes such as vowel deletion, vowel restriction, apophony, vowel narrowing, consonant deletion, consonant harmony, consonant loss, voicing, assonance and haplology to the law of least effort. Also, from a morphological point of view, we can explain the reason for some words' transformation into affixes over time with the law of least effort. However, the changes in contrast with this situation, which seems quite logical, are also seen in the language. In other words, the change that requires more effort to pronounce a word compared to its initial form may also be seen. These changes can be exemplified by sound changes such as epenthesis, vowel extension, vowel backing, excrescence, consonant gemination. Besides these phonetic changes, morphologically in some changes we see the examples of situations that are in contrast with the least effort law or the situations which can be called as the most effort law. Changes such as morphologic pleonasm, changing of connector vowel into suffix vowel, merging of more than one suffix to be used as one suffix can be seen as morphological examples.
In this study, the changes in contrast with the least effort law in the Turkish language spoken in the Republic of Turkey will be identified, and the reasons for this situation will be contemplated upon.
Keywords
Least effort law, most effort law, epenthesis, excrescence, pleonasm.