Different sentence type in Karakhanid Turkish : Sentences with "Ol-" but without "-Kim"

Abstract

Turkish compound sentences, specifically relative clauses with "kim", first appeared in the Old Uygur Turkish period when Turkish had been influenced by a number of foreign languages. In particular, Turkish interrogative pronouns such as "kim, ne, kayu were borrowed from Indo-European languages like Soghdian and Sanskrit, when such constructions were translated into Turkish. This kind of sentence structure continued to appear in the first Islamic Period Turkish texts. It is noteworthy that the Divanü Lügat-ü-Türk (DLT) did not include such patterns although all Karakhanid texts had compound sentences with -Kim. While the consructions with -Kim could be observed in Kutadgu Bilig published approximately at the same period, it is attention-grabbing that Mahmud Kashgari did not explain such structures or even give an example for similar structures in his work. Instead of such borrowed compound forms, he prefered using original Turkish sentences and supply a different Turkish structure (Ol- constructions) alternative to the sentences with -Kim consciously or not. In our study, we aim to explain this alternative structure under the heading Ol- constructions without -Kim and compare the variants in Köktürk, Old Uighur, and Karakhanid Turkish Periods.