TURKISH CLAUSE LINKAGE 539ever, it loses its function as a tense and serves only to mark imperfective/
progressive aspect. The -Er suffix has further peculiarities, possibly includ
ing a status function. The actual function of -Er won't be discussed in this
paper as it generally has only an aspectual force in the examples (i.e., pre
ceding the past tense suffix). In summary, though I will gloss -lyor and -Er
as "progressive" and "aorist" (in accordance with previous descriptions of
Turkish) I will consider their occurrences in the examples to be instances of
imperfective and habitual/generic aspect, respectively, when followed by a
tense suffix.
F&VV, in their discussion of what has traditionally been considered
"mode" or "mood", argue that actually three classes of operators are
involved. Evidentials, such as the Turkish -mIş, are clausal operators.
Modality (discussed below) is a core operator. Status is a clausal operator
"inside" evidentiality (and possibly ordered inside of tense, see F&VV
1984:216ff.); it marks "the variable actuality of the event" and includes
operators that make distinctions along the following continuum:
real ← necessary — probable — possible → unreal (F&VV 1984:213).
Status, then, includes English "modals" such as must, can, may in their
epistemic sense and adverbs such as Turkish belki, "maybe". The suffix -dir
also may function as a status operator. Note the following examples from
Lewis (1967) (and confirmed by my consultants):
(6) Bahçe-de-ler.
garden-Loc-PL
"They are in the garden."
(7) Bahçe-de-ler-dir.
garden-Loc-PL-dIr
"They may be in the garden."
(8) §iir yaz-ιyor-um.
poetry write-PROG-lsG
"I am writing poetry."
(9) §iir yaz-iyor-um-dur.
poetry write-PROG-lsG-d/r
"Surely I am writing poetry."
The last class of operators to be discussed here is that which F&VV call
"modality", which characterizes the speaker's estimate of the relationship
of the actor of the event to its accomplishment, whether he has the obliga
tion, the intention, or the ability to perform it. (F&VV 1984:214)