ATASÖZLERİMİZDE SIFAT VE SIFAT-FİİLLERİN KULLANIMI

Proverbs which passed down from generations to generations; are least effected from the changes of language in time and the major vocabulary that can assist to understand structural properties of that language. In this article, our proverbs were examined in point of utilization of adjectives and verbal adjectives. Data were obtained from, the work of Ömer Asım Aksoy named “Atasözleri Sözlüğü”.(1998) In this work, which is an important resource of Turkey’s Turkish, 2667 proverbs were examined one by one and findings were supported with quantitative data. Utilization rate of adjectives and verbal adjectives in examined proverbs are: descriptive adjectives (including verbal adjectives) 65.18%, numeral adjectives 24.46%, indefinite adjectives 7.99%, demonstrated adjectives 2.17% and interrogative adjectives 0.20%. In proverbs, descriptive adjectives are the most used in terms of adjective species. In general, words which used as adjectives were used for to describe properties of a situation. Color adjectives that used in words of wisdom were hoary, crimson, trout, dark, yellow and white. In some examples words hoary and dark were used in means of color while in others they moved away from their meanings and used with good/light or bad/dark meanings. In proverbs, there are 12 different word groups which described with adjectives: humans, animals, objects, intangibles, nature components, biologic notions, food related concepts, cloth related concepts, place related concepts, communication related concepts, earning related concepts and other notions. Adjectives, usually, describe names related with humans. There are three examples for diminutives, these adjectives can be formed with “-cık” and “-ce” affixes. There are no title adjectives that describe respect, job or degree. There are only two examples of patronymics in proverbs. Descriptive adjectives generally display simple and derived feature in point of structure. Words, mostly, derived from “-siz and –li” derivational affixes. This situation, together with decreasing the association of the word prevents different perceptions; they put a positive or negative precision to expression. Usually, in our proverbs every adjective is formed as one word; in a Word, bunching doesn’t occur. Our ancestors generally prefer to use, simple and plane two word noun phrases (adjective/name) for descriptive adjectives. Demonstrative adjective samples which detected in proverbs; 236 of them are numeral adjectives, 81 of them are indefinite adjectives, 22 of them are determinative adjectives and 2 of them are interrogative adjectives. “Many and which” are an example of interrogative adjectives. Common adjective ‘’this’’ used only in 2 proverbs; “that and it” are never used. This situation shows that demonstrative adjectives are usually formed with affix”-ki”(12). As for indefinite adjectives “every 54, only 12, much 8, less 5 and few 2” times used. Every for “work, tree, day, thing, time”; only for “men, tree”; much for “word (saying)”, less for “goods, hand” and few for “pain and food” used to complete their meanings. Indefinite adjectives, as in descriptive adjectives, are usually present before single nouns. In our proverbs, there are examples of cardinal, ordinal, fractional numerical adjectives. In contrast to this, distributive and community numerical adjectives are not present in our proverbs. Examples of fractional numerical adjectives (half and semi) and ordinal numeral adjectives (first and last) can only be seen in two proverbs. As for we know, in Turkish, ordinal meaning is given with adding affix “-inci”. It is remarkable that this practical affix is never used –as adjectives- in proverbs. As for cardinal numeral adjectives “one” is the most used adjective. By using ‘’one’’ with “forty and thousand” numbers, they bring proverbs extremism, supremacy, exaggeration meanings. “Ten” used for destiny, luck, struggle to earn living, “two” used for reasonable situations which gives no surprise. “Three” used to state material side of the human, worth they give to finance. “Five” usually used for money and family ties. “Nine” used to state negative situations like not being competent, fail to satisfy the expected, intolerance, contempt. In this point of view, we can say the presence of the numbers is not just for distinguish an entity from others, but they carry qualitative value and make contribution to the harmony of the proverb. Distributions of affixes in terms of adjective clauses in inspected proverbs are: “-an (85), mez (5), -ar (2), -dik (43), -ecek (16), -miş (3). In our proverbs, the usage of affix “-ası” cannot be found. Only “-an (250), -dik (16), -ecek (2), -miş (3) affixes are used for nominalized adjectives. From this point forth in proverbs the affix “-an” was used most with regards to verbal adjectives and nominalized verbal adjectives. In fact, the usage of this affix is more than the sum of other affixes. Utilization of nominalized adjectives is a token of that our ancestors preferred short expression. Two hundred twenty six of these adjectives describe people; while others (45) describe an incident, a situation or entities other than humans. In the large part of our proverbs it can be seen that usually generalization attained over humans. Most part of the verbal adjectives (418) with regard to the meaning given have positive attribute. Under the headline of verbal adjectives, foundation formal and structural properties are also inspected. Twenty five different structures were detected in point of utilization of gerundives. Even only the variety of utilization of verbal adjectives is the indicator of richness of Turkish syntax it owns.