Contributors: Aslı Göksel, Balkız Öztürk, Betül Emgin, Eser Taylan, İsmail Avcı Bucak’lişi, Markus A. Pöchtrager, Neşe Kaya, Ömer Demirok, Özge Sarıgül, Ümit Atlamaz

This grammar presents the essential features of the Pazar dialect of Laz, also known as Atinan. Laz is a Caucasian language mainly spoken in Turkey. It belongs to the subgroup called the South-Caucasian branch, along with Megrelian, Georgian and Svan. Laz is an endangered language. The number of speakers is estimated to range between 50,000 and 500,000.

Most of the data for this grammatical sketch were collected from a native speaker of Pazar Laz, during a course on linguistic field methods at Boğaziçi University in Spring 2010, taught by Balkız Öztürk and Markus A. Pöchtrager. The grammar was jointly written by the students and the faculty members who attended this course. Additional material comes from three different research projects conducted by the faculty members (Aslı Göksel, Balkız Öztürk and Markus A. Pöchtrager) funded by the Boğaziçi University Scientific Research Fund. The present text discusses the phonology, morphology and syntax of Pazar Laz in great detail, supported by roughly 600 examples, and closes with a fully glossed text which illustrates many of the topics covered in the main text. It will be of interest to a wide variety of scholars, from experts on Caucasian languages to theoretical linguists.

Contents:

Abbreviations and Symbols

0. Introductory Remarks

1. Phonology (1.1. Vowels, 1.2. Consonants, 1.2.1 Basic system, 1.2.2 Phonotactics, 1.3 Minimal Word, 1.4 Suprasegmentals: Stress, 1.5. Loans, 1.6 Orthography).

2. Morphology (2.1 Word Classes, 2.2 The Morphology of Substantives, 2.2.1 Nouns, 2.2.1.1 Number, 2.2.1.2 Gender/Class, 2.2.1.3 Definiteness/Referentiality, 2.2.1.4 Case, 2.2.1.5 Possession, 2.2.2 Pronouns, 2.2.2.1 Personal Pronouns, 2.2.2.2 Possessive Pronouns, 2.2.2.3 Demonstratives, 2.2.2.4 Reflexives, 2.2.2.5 Interrogative Pronouns, 2.2.2.6 Indefinite Pronouns, 2.2.2.7 Quantifiers, 2.2.3 Numerals, 2.2.4 Adjectives, 2.2.4.1 Comparatives and Superlatives, 2.2.5 Adverbs, 2.2.6 Derived Substantives, 2.2.6.2 Compounds, 2.3 The Verb, 2.3.1 Person Marking, 2.3.2 Valency Operations and Pre-Root Vowels (Version Vowels), 2.3.3 Tense-Aspect-Modality Paradigms in Pazar Laz, 2.3.4 Mood and Modality in Laz, 2.3.5 Negation, 2.3.6 Thematic Suffixes, 2.3.6 Affirmative Preverbs, 2.3.7 Spatial Prefixes, 2.3.8 Verb classes, 2.3.9 Suppletive Verbs, 2.4 Prepositions AND Postpositions).

3. Syntax (3.1 Non-Verbal Sentences, 3.2 Questions, 3.2.1 Polar Questions, 3.2.2 Question Tag, 3.2.3 Wh-Questions, 3.3 Complex Sentences, 3.3.1 Coordination, 3.3.2 Complement Clauses, 3.3.3 Relative Clauses, 3.3.4 Adverbial Clauses, 3.4 Word Order, Sentential Stress and Intonation, 3.4.1 Canonial word order (presentational focus), 3.4.2 The elision of subjects and objects, 3.4.3 Word order variation and contrastive focus, 3.4.4 Topics, 3.4.5 Negative sentences, 3.4.6 Polar Questions, 3.4.7 Wh- questions, 3.4.8 Rhetorical questions, 3.4.9 Echo questions, 3.4.10 Imperative constructions, 3.4.11 Marking an item for prominence).

4. Sample Text: K’oncolozi do Xorzha. Bibliography