Abstract:

In the studies on Turkish grammar, the imperative mood/modality and the optative mood/modality are treated as two separate moods/modalities; however, in several studies examples given to explain this topic fail to highlight the distinction between the conceptual areas which are marked by the moods in question. Information on markers of the optative mood/modality differ from one resource to another; in some resources, it is suggested that imperative is expressed without using any morphemes, while in others the morphemes which are thought to mark the imperative and the person together for all persons except for the second person singular are listed. Moreover, in some studies it is advocated that the person cannot give imperatives to himself/herself, thus there is no conjugation of the first person singular, but in other studies this idea is opposed. These inconsistencies/discrepancies and the complexity stemming from the differences in approaches hamper teaching of this subject to a great extent. In the present study, it was aimed to highlight the problems hampering teaching of the optative mood/modality and thus contributing to the solutions of the said problems. To this end, first of all the concepts of mood, modality, aspect, imperative and optative were examined, and then whether there was a distinctive imperative mood different from the optative mood in the period from Old Turkish to Modern Turkish was investigated over the samples supporting the existence of such a mood. The following result was concluded from the data that were gathered: Imperative is a kind of featured desire which is achieved in an order of hierarchical relationships. It is a mood which reflects the speaker’s attitude toward the carrying out the action or not carrying out it. This mood has morphological, lexical, syntactic and prosodic markers. In the period from Old Turkish to Modern Turkish, a standard mood the primary function of which was to express imperatives and which had conjugations of six persons did not exist. In fact, the structure, -AyIm, -AlIm; -Ø, -Xn(Xz); -sXn, -sXnlAr, which was proposed as the imperative mood in studies of grammar is an optative mood. Expressing imperatives is only one of many functions of this structure in conjugations of different persons, except for the first person singular.

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