Şey-substitution and constituent structure in Turkish
- This paper attempts to account for the syntactic distribution of the particle sey in Turkish, in particular its suffixed variant which is a placeholder for expressions that have to be inserted into the discourse later. The paper argues that the distribution of suffixed sey is determined by constituent structure, meaning that Bey can only substitute for syntactic constituents. Thus, sey acts as a pro-form, similar, for instance, to pronouns substituting for noun phrases. This has two implications: First, as sey is a quasi-universal pro-form with the ability to substitute for a wide range of constituents, sey-substitution can be used as a constituency test to peek into the constituent structure of virtually any major syntactic domain. Second, the overall sey-substitution pattern across different syntactic domains constitutes evidence for Kayne's binary branching hypothesis.
