Manifestations of Asemanticization in Turkic Languages

Abstract

This article examines the process of asemanticization in Turkic languages from historical, structural, and semantic perspectives. Asemanticization is interpreted as a linguistic phenomenon in which a root or word loses its independent lexical meaning and is preserved only as part of compound words, leading to significant morphological and semantic changes in the course of language development. The study investigates how monosyllabic roots such as uz, ır, arı, qu, and ulu, which were active in Old Turkic, have undergone asemanticization and become fossilized components in modern Turkic languages. Furthermore, the interrelation of asemanticization with processes like grammaticalization, lexicalization, and desemanticization is analyzed. The article presents a comparative analysis of relevant data from Azerbaijani, Turkish, Kazakh, Tatar, and other Turkic languages. The findings demonstrate that asemanticization is not merely a structural transformation but also a dynamic process affecting the semantic and cultural layers of the language.
Keywords: asemanticization, independent lexical meaning, Turkic languages, historical-comparative linguistics, semantic evolution.