A neo-humean analysis of Turkish enclitic "dE" in coherence relations

Abstract

This quantitative study aims to investigate the role of enclitic dE in Turkish coherence relations by depending on Kehler's (2002) taxonomy. It also explores the applicability of the taxonomy with regard to its relevance for the analysis of written-text discourse and focusing dE in Turkish. He proposed three main categories such as Resemblance, Cause-Effect, and Contiguity. The first category was divided into subcategories as Similarity, Contrast, Exemplification, Generalization, Exception, and Elaboration. The subcategories of the second one were listed as Result, Explanation, Violated Expectation, and Denial of Preventer. The last category was noted to include Occasion. While gathering data, tokens of dE were extracted from naturally occurring written-discourse gathered from a novel titled "Turkan Tek ve Tek Basina". These were selected as representatives of the target item's use in Turkish and discourse context was taken into consideration. The frequency count showed that the most common relations are Occasion, Parallel (Similarity), and Result relations. It was concluded that enclitic dE could establish coherence relations within the text in many different ways. The results shed some light onto the understanding of what kind of coherence relations this enclitic contribute to in written discourse.