Declension system of the turkic languages: historical development of case endings

Declension system of the Turkic languages is characterized by a large number of cases and a variety of forms of cases. The research works indicate the number of cases in the Turkic languages in different ways, in some languages they are considered to be 6, and in the others 7 or 8. There are different opinions about the number of cases in the language of the ancient Turkic written monuments, known as the source of the Turkic languages. Some scholars define 11 cases and some say that the number of main cases is 7. In the language of the Orkhon, Yenisei and Talas monuments there are hidden or null form of cases, as well as the meaning of cases can be given by individual words. Also, some endings correspond with the formants of other cases according to the form or comply with other formants of cases according to the meaning. If we look at the course of historical formation and development of case endings (formants) in the language of the ancient Turkic written monuments, the written heritage of medieval Turkic language and modern Turkic languages, we notice that in general, the reconstructed original Ancient Altaic and Turkic proto-language form is preserved in the declension system. The peculiarities of the declension system of the modern Turkic languages are connected with a variety of case endings that is a phonetic variation by adding endings to the last sound of the root-word.

declination system of the Turkic languages, the language of ancient Turkic monuments, medieval Turkic written heritage, reconstruction, Ancient Altaic proto-language, common Turkic proto-language, phonetic variation of endings, grammatical meaning, null form

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