540 JAMES K. WATTERS
There are two problems that Turkish modals raise for the claims in
F&VV. First, they aren't always ordered linearly within the morphology in
the predicted pattern. F&VV claims that "the order of verbal affixes with
reference to the verb reflects the scope relations of the operators they
express" (1984:223). In light of the Turkish data, this claim will have to be
weakened somewhat to apply only to affixes that have a single function.
Though the suffixes which mark aspect are ordered within the status and
tense suffixes, they are ordered outside the modality suffixes:
(10) Uyu-yabil-ir-im.
sleep- ABIL-AOR-ISG
"I'm able to sleep."
This is partly due to the fact that -lyor, -mlş, and -Er, besides marking
aspect also function as the outer operators of tense, evidentiality, and
status. But there is also a further reason for this. As Sabahat Tura has
pointed out (p.c.), the abilitative behaves like another nucleus. Indeed, it
apparently has a historical origin as a type of nuclear juncture: the suffix
comes from a combination of the gerund suffix -E and the verb stem bil,
"know" (Lewis 1967:151). However, it doesn't appear that the synchronic
situation involves nuclear juncture. This decision has significant ramifica
tions for some of the analyses that follow. I will frequently refer to the abil
ity of -Ebil to occur in a clause as evidence of whether or not that clause
may be independently marked for the core operator, modality. If one were
to work from the assumption that it is synchronically an instance of nuclear
juncture, significantly different conclusions would be reached. I offer two
arguments against a nuclear juncture analysis. First, note the following
examples:
(11) Gel-ebil-di.
come-ABIL-PT
"X could come."
(12) Gel-eme-di
COme-NEG.ABIL-PT
"X couldn"t come."
The negation of the abilitative does not involve the form related to bil,
"know", at all. If we take into account this paradigmatic relationship of
-Ebil with its negative counterpart, it no longer appears to function as a full
verb, which is what nuclear juncture analysis would require.