Abstract

This study aims at investigating the Turkish apology forms in terms of their formal properties. For this purpose, Turkish apology forms are grouped into 2 categories : 1) apologies in the imperative ; and 2) apologies in the declarative. Categorising the data according to these two groups, Turkish apology forms are analysed in terms of Noam Chomsky's transformational-generative grammar and their structures are presented by way of tree-diagrams.Moreover, it has also been found out in this research that all apology forms in Turkish exhibit short and elliptical structures which are mostly composed of compounds and two-word sentences.

Key Words: Apology forms, structure, formal approach, imperative sentence, declarative sentence, tree diagram, deep structure, surface structure.

Özet

Bu çalışmanın amacı Türkçe'deki özür dileme biçimlerini yapısal açıdan incelemek ve tanımlamaktır. Bu amaçla, Türkçe'deki özür dileme biçimleri 2 gruba ayrılmıştır : 1) buyrum tümcelerinden oluşan özür dileme biçimleri ve 2) bildirme tümcelerinden oluşan özür dileme biçimleri. Türkçe'deki özür dileme biçimleri bu iki kategori esas alınarak Noam Chomsky'nin üretimsel-dönüşümlü dilbilgisi modeline göre incelenmiş ve özür tümcelerinin yapıları dizim ağaçları çizilerek belirlenmiştir. Bu çalışmada ayrıca Türkçe'deki bütün özür dileme biçimlerinin kısa ve eksiltili yapılardan ve çoğu zaman da bileşik sözcük veya iki sözcüklü tümcelerden oluştuğu ortaya konulmuştur.

Anahtar sözcükler: Özür dileme biçimleri, yapı, biçimsel yaklaşım, buyrum tümcesi, bildirme tümcesi, dizim ağacı, derin yapı, yüzeysel yapı.

1. INTRODUCTION

Language is a broad and complex term. It's complex, because humans haven't yet solved the mystery underlying this reality. How mind operates and how it produces language items are still unknown. Language is an institution that comprises and correlates the biological, sociological, and psychological foundations.

At different times, different features of language have struck people as particularly significant, typical or worthy of attention. Any system as complex as a human language is bound to lend itself to a variety of independent approaches. While all of these approaches have undoubted appeal, there is an obvious logical point to be made : one must be able to describe a language, at least in part, before going on to compare it with other systems. It seems to us that there is no way of describing or defining a given language without invoking the notion of a linguistic structure. It is clearly important, since by investigating the nature and variety of linguistic structures we may be able to provide quite detailed evidence about points of comparison between human languages and other systems also.

The main aim of this study is to provide information about the structure of apology forms in Turkish. In other words, the aim will be to state the forms of apology in terms of their structure. The work is founded on the belief that the systematic analysis and discussion of the structure of apology forms in an objective way is an essential step towards any kind of interdisciplinary study related with the subject.

'Apology' can be defined as "expression of regret for a fault, error, or offense" (1). As the definition indicates, forms of apology are used when there is a fault or failure to be forgiven. Therefore, apology always carries with it the will to be forgiven and is expressed by different but limited linguistic forms in language such as affedersin, "I'm sorry / excuse me / I beg your pardon / sorry"; özür dilerim, "I apologize / I'm sorry"; bağışla, "forgive me"; kusura bakma "forgive me / I'm sorry"; hoşgör, "be tolerant"; pardon "pardon me / excuse me"; affet, "forgive me"; af diliyorum, "I ask your pardon"; affına sığınıyorum, "I beg to be excused etc.

The data used in this study is collected from the different works of contemporary Turkish writers and sometimes is formed by our intuition as native speakers. In this way, the collected sentences are examined and evaluated in terms of their formal properties. The selected sentences are literally translated throughout the study.

II. A FORMAL APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF APOLOGY

A. Formalism

Crystal (1992 : 370) summarizes the structural approach as follows:

Structuralism was followed by Chomsky's Transformational-Generative approach which was also a formal approach to language. However, although Chomsky based his theory on structural findings, his ideas about linguistic analysis were different from the ideas of his period. With his theory, Chomsky was proposing to draw conclusions from the nature of language to the nature of the human mind.

The publication of Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structures in 1957, marked the beginning of a new approach to language description. His revolutionary ideas are later developed in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965) which introduced new methods and a new theory known as 'transformational-generative grammar.'

According to Chomsky's generative theory, language consists of a set of sentences, and grammar has to assign structural descriptions to all these sentences to show how its parts are combined to form the full sentence. In his theory, Chomsky also emphasizes the creative aspect of language and the intuitions or judgements of the native speakers. Therefore, the sentences that the grammar accounts for are not only the actual utterances of the speakers, but also the probable sentences of that language which the speakers would judge as well-formed. According to Chomsky, the aim of a linguistic description should be to specify the nature of language competence which underlie the facts of language performance (Maclay, 1971: 163).

On the other hand, a "transformational grammar is one which incorporates two aspects of syntactic description, a surface structure and a more abstract deep structure, together with a set of transformational rules relating deep and surface structure" (Allen and Widdowson, 1975: 58). According to Chomsky, the difference between deep structure and surface structure is illustrated by the fact easily perceived by speakers of a language, that some sentences contain other sentences as part of their internal structure.

In the transformational generative theory, two types of rules define the two major components of a grammar. Phrase Structure Rules are in the form of rewrite rules, and they show the linear order and the environment for the constituents of a sentence. The second type of rules are transformational rules. They are also rewrite rules, but they reorganize the constituents, delete or add some items, or combine two strings in order to form a new one. When applied to the output of the phrase structure component, these rules produce more complex sentences. Transformational rules can be optional or obligatory. Optional transformations may or may not be applied in constructing a derivation; the result is still a sentence. As for the obligatory transformation, if they are not applied, the result is not a sentence at all.

B. The Structure of Apology Forms

Under this heading, the structural properties of the apology forms in Turkish will be studied in terms of transformational generative approach. Through P-markers, visual representation of apology forms will be exhibited and the relationship between the underlying and the surface structures will be shown by applying a series of transformations to the deep structure of apologies in Turkish.

To start with, a list of apology forms found in Turkish can be given. These are namely: affet "forgive me"; kusura bakma "forgive me / I'm sorry"; bağışla "forgive me"; affedersin "I'm sorry / excuse me / I beg your pardon / sorry"; kusura kalma "forgive me / I'm sorry"; hoşgör "be tolerant"; pardon "pardon me / excuse me"; özür dilerim "I apologize / I'm sorry"; af dilerim "I ask your pardon"; affeyle "forgive me"; affınızı istiyorum "I ask your pardon"; affınıza sığınıyorum "I beg to be excused"; af buyur "excuse me". What they all share is that they are short, direct and elliptical. Most apology forms can be defined as sentences which have no clear grammatical subject and whose verbs are in the base form. At this point, the apology forms can be divided into two groups: 1) Apologies in the imperative, and 2) Apologies in the declarative.

1. Apologies in the imperative

It is a fact that most apology forms appear in the imperative and have an "understood you' 'sen/siz', as subject according to traditional grammars. The following examples show the case clearly:

-Komser mi? Öyle ise ben caddeyi tutuyorum ...... Kusura bakma! (Talu, 1982: 40)	"Who? The Sheriff? In that case, I will control the street ..... I'm sorry."
- Babacığım diyor, beni affet! (Faik, 1970: 25)	"Dearest father" says he.... Do forgive me!
- Kusura kalma, hoşgör usta- dedi. (Faik, 1970: 176)	"Forgive me, be tolerant master" he said.
- Bağışlayın, yapamayacağım. (Hepçilingirler, 1990: 100)	"Forgive me, I won't be able to do that"
- Memidik kendine gelince yenilmez bir utanç duydu. "Kusura bakma Zeliha" dedi. (Kemal, 1983: 339)	When Memidik came to his senses he felt terribly ashamed and said "Forgive me Zeliha"

Although imperative sentences are considered as commands, in the context of apologising, they are not interpreted as commands. Using imperatives in apologizing is a matter of 'asking' for being forgiven.

According to Akmajian and Henry (1986: 233), imperative sentences are derived from deep structures that have 'you' as subject and 'will' as auxiliary. Imperative sentences consist of only a verb phrase on the surface.

It is a fact that imperative transformation deletes the subject noun phrase 'sen/siz' from the deep structure and produces a surface structure without a subject.

The clause structure of Turkish apology forms will be exhibited in terms of the following phrase structure rules:

S ..› NP + VP
NP › N
NP › (N) N
VP › V
VP › NP + V
VP › NP + NP + V
VP › NP + ADVP + V
VP › ADJP + V ............................(İnce, 1986: 79)

In the light of the transformational-generative approach discussed above, the relation between the deep structure and the surface structure of the imperative apology sentences can be shown by the following examples via tree diagrams.

The first form to be examined is kusura bakma which can be seen in the following extracts:

- Biraz bekleyeceksiniz ama kusura bakmayın. (Akıncı, 1982: 244)	You'll wait for a little while but forgive me.
- Kusura bakmayın, ben sizi bizim oradaki bir terziye benzettim... (Tığlı, 1982: 257)	I'm sorry, I confused you with a tailor in my neighbourhood.

Example 1:

Kusura bakma (Surface structure) "forgive me / I'm sorry".

Imp Sen prs kusura bakmayacaksın. (Deep structure) "you will forgive me"

S ..› NP + VP
NP › N
VP › NP + V

1. Deep Structure

2. Deletion of the abstract imperative marker

3. Imperative Transformation (Deletion of "Sen" and the future tense suffix {-EcEk}

4. Surface Structure

Here, {-EcEk} is the future tense, {-mE} is the negative making suffix and {-sIn} is the verbal agreement suffix. Since the doer of the action is the second person singular pronoun, the suffix {-sIn} is used.

As for the persons used in imperatives, it is possible to say that they are restricted to 2nd. person forms. Lyons also points out that the 1st and the 3rd. person imperatives (affedeyim, affetsin) are not real imperatives as the subject of such imperatives does not refer to the hearer. Since the communication of a command requires both a speaker and a hearer, and commands are addressed to those who are to carry them out, the subject of an imperative sentence normally must be the 2nd. person (1979: 300).

The 2nd. person in Turkish is realized in two different ways: 2nd. person singular "sen" and 2nd. person plural "siz" which are understood from the verb of the sentence. "Kusura bakma {- Ø} or "Kusura bakmayacak{-sIn}"has the subject pronoun "sen", whereas "Kusura bakma {-yIn}" or "Kusura bakmayacak {-sInIz}" has the subject NP "siz".

The sentence "kusura bakma" may also occur as kusuruma bakma the deep structure of which can be shown as the following:

Example 2:

Kusuruma bakma (Surface structure) "forgive me / I'm sorry".

Imp Sen prs benim kusuruma bakmayacaksın. (Deep structure) "You will forgive me".

S.. › NP + VP
NP › (N) N
VP › NP + V

1. Deep Structure

2. Deletion of the abstract imperative marker

3. Imperative Transformation (Deletion of "Sen" and the future tense suffix {-EcEk}:

4. Possessive pronoun deletion transformation (The possessive pronoun "benim" which forms the first part of the construction may optionally be omitted by a deletion transformation since the existence of it can clearly be seen in the personal ending of the head noun.) (İnce, 1986: 49)

5. Surface Structure

Negative imperative form kusura kalma "forgive me / I'm sorry" which has the underlying form

may also occur especially in contexts where lower-class or uneducated people converse with each other. This can be seen in the following extracts:

- Kusura kalma hemşeri, bizi madara ettin, biz de başka kapıdan yolumuza bakalım... (Nesin, 1975: 150)	Forgive us compatriot. You made a fool of us. Now, we should find another way of doing it.
- Kusura kalma yavru, sesinden bilemedim. (Kemal, 1981: 43)	Forgive me babe. I couldn't recognize your voice.

"Kusura kalma" has also the variant form kusuruma kalma "Forgive me / I'm sorry" which has a possessive construction in its deep structure just like the form "kusuruma bakma":

- "Hakkını helal et" dedi. Çok derdimi belamı çektiniz. Kusuruma kalma. (Kemal, 1981: 289)

"Wish me good luck" he said. You suffered a lot because of me. Forgive me.

Negative imperative forms in apologising mostly have the effect of uncompromising positiveness. The sentences "Kusura bakma" or "Kusura kalma", for example, are notionally equivalent to "Beni affet" or "bağışla". However, the effect is stronger in the positive forms than the negative forms where the message is indirectly oriented.

The imperative form affet is also used in apologising. For example:

- Çocuk "Baba affet!. Ölmüş anama acı" dedi. (Faik, 1970: 25)	The child said "Forgive me father. Have mercy for my dead mother".
- Seni üzdüğüm için beni affet. Gözlerinden öperim kızım. (Faik, 1977: 198)	"I hurt your feelings. Forgive me. I kiss you on your eyes my daughter".

Example 3:

Affet (Surface structure) "forgive me"

Imp Sen prs beni affedeceksin. (Deep structure) "You will forgive me"

S ..› NP + VP
NP › N
VP › NP + NP + V

1. Deep Structure

2. Deletion of the abstract imperative marker

3. Imperative Transformation (Deletion of "Sen" and the future tense suffix {-EcEk}

4. Direct object NP deletion transformation: Direct object NP "beni" can optionally be deleted from the verb phrase leaving us with the following surface structure:

At this point, we may mention a special type of noun-verb compound which is composed of a "light verb" as Kornfilt calls it, such as et, eyle, yap all meaning "do" and ol meaning "be" or "become". So, these light verbs are linked to nominal elements and form compounds in Turkish. (Kornfilt. 1977: 321)

Gencan, in his book Dilbilgisi classifies noun + etmek compounds into two categories: 1) Compouds which undergo a sound change and are written as one word. These compounds are usually composed of borrowed nouns which double their final consonants such as hissetmek, "to feel" zannetmek "to think" hakketmek "to deserve". 2) Compounds which do not have a sound change and are written as two separate words like yardım etmek "to help" gayret etmek "to endeavor", etc. (1979: 322)

In the light of this explanation, it is possible to say that the compound "af etmek" which is composed of Ar. af + etmek falls into the first category since it undergoes a sound change with a resulting consonant gemination and becomes "affetmek" on the surface level. Then, it looks and functions like a single verb which can be falsely demonstrated by the following tree diagram:

 

However, as Adams (1973: 62) also state, different variations of compounds may correspond to a variety of structures and contain a variety of underlying meaning relations than one intuitively feels. So, the compound "affetmek" is not simply a verb but rather a construction composed of an NP + V.

The imperative apology form affeyle forgive me" which has the same underlying structure with "affet" is used especially in religious contexts. For example:

- Sen bizim günahlarımızı affeyle, Yarabbim...

Oh God! Do forgive our sins.

Hoş gör "be tolerant" is another apology form which can be considered as having an infrequent use. The following examples can be given:

- İyi olmamışsa hoşgörün dedi, elden geleni yaptık. (Nesin, 1975: 48)	"If it isn't good enough, be tolerant" he said. I did my best".
- Yaptık ama, dedi, pek iyi olmadıysa hoşgörün. (Nesin, 1975: 48)	"We finished it" he said. "But if it is not good enough, be tolerant"

Surface and deep structures of the imperative form "hoşgör" can be given as the following:

Example 4:

Hoş gör (Sometimes written as hoşgör) (Surface structure) "be tolerant"

Imp Sen prs beni hoş göreceksin. (Deep structure) "You will be tolerant"

S.. › NP + VP
NP › N
VP › NP + ADVP + V

1. Deep Structure

2. Deletion of the abstract imperative marker

3. Imperative Transformation (Deletion of "Sen" and the future tense suffix {-EcEk}

4. Optional Direct object NP deletion transformation

As a result, it can be said that the apology form "hoş gör" is a compound which is composed of an adverb + verb.

Another imperative apology form to be dealt with is bağışla / bağışlayın "forgive me":

- Bağışlayın, yapamayacağım. (Hepçilingirler, 1990: 100)	"Forgive me, I won't be able to do that".
- Beni bağışlayın dedi içtenlikle. (İleri, 1984: 169)	"Forgive me" he said sincerely.

The relationship between the deep and surface structure of the form bağışlayın can be shown by the following tree diagrams:

Example 5:

Bağışlayın (Surface structure) "forgive me"

Imp Siz prs. beni bağışlayacaksınız. (Deep structure) "you will forgive me"

S ..› NP + VP
NP › N
VP › NP + V

1. Deep Structure

2. Deletion of the abstract imperative marker

3. Imperative Transformation (Deletion of "Siz", the future tense suffix {-EcEk}, and the verbal ağreement suffix {-sInIz}. On the surface, the imperative form takes the suffix {-yIn} which agrees with the deleted pronoun "siz":

4. Direct Object deletion transformation (Direct object NP "beni" can optionally be deleted from the verb phrase):

The imperative form af buyur / af buyurun "excuse me" which is composed of af + buyurun is also used as an apology form and has the underlying structure:

This can be seen in the following examples:

- Af buyurun, ne dediğinizi anlayamadım.	Excuse me, I couldn't understand what you said.
- Af buyur sen bana mı seslendin?	Excuse me, did you call me?

The exclamation destur / desturun (Far. destur=permission) can also be seen in vernacular language before mentioning something improper with a meaning of "affedersin" "I'm sorry / excuse me" and can be included in the imperative category:

- Desdurun, içi sürüyormuş. (Türkçe Sözlük, 1983:364)

Excuse me, he says he has nausea.

2. Apologies in the Declarative

The forms like özür dilerim "I'm sorry"; affedersin "I'm sorry / excuse me"; af diliyorum "I ask your pardon"; affınıza sığınıyorum "I beg to be excused" appear in the declarative form and have the function of "asking for being forgiven".

The elliptical form özür dilerim, for example, expresses a direct apology:

- Özür dilerim Fahrünnisa.... Yanımda bir elli lira daha olsa inan olsun artırırdım. (Taner, 1983: 95)	I'm sorry Fahrünnisa .... If I had 50 more Liras, believe me I would increase the amount.
- Özür dilerim, birşey ikram edemedim. (Toprak, 1975: 157)	I couldn't offer you anything. This form has the following underlying structure:

This form has the following underlying structure:

Example 6:

Özür dilerim (Surface structure) "I apologize / I'm sorry"

Ben senden / sizden özür dilerim. (Deep structure) "I will apologize to you".

S ..› NP + VP
NP › N
VP › NP + NP + V

1. Deep Structure

2. Subject pronoun deletion.

Subject NP "Ben" is optionally deleted leaving the following structure:

3. Indirect object deletion transformation

The indirect object pronoun "sen" or "siz" can also be optionally deleted. In the deep structure of the form "özür dilerim", both 2nd. person singular pronoun "sen" and the second person plural pronoun "siz" exist; however, their surface interpretation depend on the non- linguistic information such as the number of people involved in the apologizing situation, or their intimacy level, etc. The deletion of the indirect object NP "senden / sizden" gives us the following surface structure:

Another declarative form is affedersin / affedersiniz "I'm sorry / excuse me / sorry /I beg your pardon":

- Sebebi benim eşekliğim, affedersin doktor bey. (Güntekin, 1983: 333)	I'm sorry doctor. The reason is nothing but my stupidity.
- Affedersiniz dedi. Dertlerinizin tazelenmesine sebep oldum. (Karaosmanoğlu, 1980: 96)	"I'm sorry" said he. I made you remember your troubles.

The verb "affetmek" takes a direct object NP and has the following deep structure-surface structure relationship:

Example 7:

Affedersin (Surface structure) "I'm sorry / excuse me"

Sen beni affedersin (Deep structure) "You will excuse me"

S ..› NP + VP
NP › N
VP › NP + NP + V

1. Deep Structure

2. Subject NP pronoun deletion transformation (Subject pronoun "Sen" is obligatorily deleted)

3. Direct object deletion transformation (Direct object NP "Beni" is also obligatorily deleted)

Then, we have the following surface structure:

As well as its literal apology meaning, the form "affedersin" has also gained a frozen social meaning indicating politeness especially when asking something to strangers. In other words, it can be said that in a question-answer context where the speaker and the hearer do not know each other, it functions as a kind of polite initiator of the communication. The following examples can be given for this purpose:

- Affedersiniz beyefendi, saatiniz kaç? (Nesin, 1975: 150)	Excuse me, Sir, what's the time?
- Affedersiniz, bu çanta sizin mi?	Excuse me, is this purse yours?

he French word pardon "pardon me / excuse me" also has the meaning of "affedersin" and used in similar contexts. However, it is not as common as its Turkish equivalent. The following examples can be given for the word "pardon:

- Ama pardon, onu anası Hera değil de babası Zeus atmıştı yeryüzüne. (Taner, 1983: 56)	But, pardon me, it was not his mother Hera but his father Zeus who threw him down to the earth.
- Pardon! Sizi duyamadım.	Pardon me! I couldn't hear you.

The imperative apology forms affınızı diliyorum "I ask your pardon" and affınıza sığınıyorum "I beg to be excused" have similar underlying structures which could be explained by the following tree diagrams:

Example 8:

Affınızı diliyorum (Surface structure) "I ask your pardon"

Ben sizin affınızı diliyorum (Deep structure) "I ask your pardon"

S...› NP + VP
NP › (N) + N
VP › NP + V

1. Deep Structure

2. Subject pronoun deletion transformation. Subject pronoun "ben" is optionally deleted.

3. Possessive pronoun deletion tranformation. The possessive pronoun "sizin" which forms the first part of the construction may optionally be omitted by a deletion transformation since its existence can clearly be seen in the personal ending of the head noun. This leaves us with the following surface structure:

4. Surface Structure

The form affımı diliyorum "I wish to be excused" however, has a rather different structure from the previous forms:

Example 9:

Affımı diliyorum (Surface structure) "I wish to be excused"

Ben benim affımı diliyorum (Deep structure) "I wish to be excused"

S ..› NP + VP
NP › (N) + N
VP › NP + V

1. Deep Structure

2. Possessive pronoun deletion transformation. Possessive pronoun "ben-im" is obligatorily omitted since it is identical with the subject pronoun "ben":

3. Subject pronoun deletion transformation. The subject pronoun "ben" is optionally deleted leaving us with the following structure:

4. Surface structure

III. CONCLUSION

As a result, it can be said that Turkish apology forms are worth studying in the sense that they have more complex syntactic properties than simply meets the eye.

In this study, Turkish apology forms are analyzed in terms of their formal properties in the light of Chomsky's transformational-generative grammar. The conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that Turkish apology forms can be grouped into 2 categories considering their structural properties. 1) apologies in the imperative, and 2) apologies in the declarative. Most of the apology forms in Turkish appear in the imperative form such as kusura bakma "forgive me/I'm sorry"; affet "forgive me", etc.. Declarative apology forms such as özür dilerim "I'm sorry" ; affedersin "I'm sorry/excuse me" on the other hand appear in the form of declarative sentences.

Moreover, regardless of the category they belong to, all apology forms in Turkish exhibit short and elliptical structures which are mostly composed of compounds such as "affetmek, "affeylemek", "af buyurmak", "hoş görmek" and two word sentences such as "kusura bakma", "özür dilerim", etc. However, although they seem short and simple, maximally having two words on the surface level, the analysis of their underlying structures indicate that they have more complex structures and transformations in their deep level.

ABBREVIATIONS

S : Sentence	ADVP : Adverbial Phrase
NP : Noun Phrase	ADJP : Adjectival Phrase
N : Noun	ADV : Adverb
V : Verb	P-Marker: Tree diagram
VP : Verb Phrase	.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR LITERARY TEXTS