ASPECT IN TURKISH: INTERACTION BETWEEN TYPES OF VERBS, ARGUMENT STRUCTURE, MORPHOLOGICAL STRUCTURE AND ADVERBS IN THE PRE-SCHOOL STORYBOOKS

In the mother-tongue acquisition process, language acquisition theories suggest that language input provides children with the ability to use tense and aspect markers competently. The purpose of this study is to analyze the phenomena of aspect in storybooks considered as significant written input, especially at the pre-school and early childhood period in which the language acquisition process is fast. In line with the aim of the study, a small scale database is set up with the verbs in six storybooks chosen considering the developmental characteristics of the children at this stage. The situation types of verbs, their argument structures, the aspectual markers attached to them and the adverbial usages are represented. Furthermore, the interaction among these structures is presented with their frequency of usage. In terms of the method, the qualitative and the quantitative data analyses based on Smith (1991)’s Aspect Theory classification are carried out. The qualitative analysis is done via classifying the lexical aspects of the verbs, the argument structure-morphological marker and the usage of the verb-adverb interaction using the Excel Program. The quantitative data analysis is done via specifying the distribution and frequency of usage of the qualitative data in the database. The results indicate that the significant number of the 242 verbs used in the storybooks is constituted of achievement and state verbs. Achievement verbs, in accordance with the text properties, are frequently used with past/perfective marking ?DI and ?mIş. This result seems to support the Aspect Theory. The other significant results of the study are that the verbs are mostly associated with bare noun phrases, and the time adverbials are the most frequently used adverbs modifying all types of verbs.