The functional categories in nominal domain in Turkish: a corpus-based analysis

Abstract

This study investigates the internal structure and ordering of functional categories in the nominal domain of Turkish, contributing to the broader discussion on the universality of syntactic hierarchies. Building on the cartographic approach, which posits a rigid, universal ordering of functional projections across languages, this study aims to empirically test these claims within the nominal domain. To this end, we used a corpus-based dataset and theoretical diagnostics to analyze the distribution and relative positioning of numerals, classifiers, demonstratives, possessors, quantifiers, and adjectives within the nominal domain in Turkish. The observed ordering of functional categories in Turkish broadly aligns with the cross-linguistic patterns proposed in previous literature, supporting the view that the nominal domain is governed by universal principles. At the same time, this study provides new insights into both universal and language-specific aspects of the cartographic architecture in the nominal domain, contributing to the theoretical discussion on the hierarchical organization of functional categories.