A Comparative Linguistic Analysis of Ottoman and Modern Turkish through UD Treebanks

Abstract

While the linguistic shifts between Ottoman and modern Turkish are well-documented qualitatively, quantitative analyses remain scarce. This study addresses this by conducting a comparative computational analysis using two Universal Dependencies treebanks: OTA-DUDU for Ottoman Turkish and TR-BOUN for modern Turkish. By employing descriptive statistics and a log-likelihood ratio test, we demonstrate the change and quantify the magnitude of diachronic variation. The analysis yields three primary statistical findings. First, our data reveals a 77% compliance rate with labial vowel harmony for suffixes, while this value is 98% in modern Turkish. This discrepancy can be explained by the presence of rounding in Ottoman Turkish, which disappears in modern Turkish. On the other hand, the compliance rate of palatal vowel harmony is quite high for both languages, 96% for Ottoman Turkish and 99% for modern Turkish. Second, some suffixes, such as the converb -(y)Ip and the dative infinitive -mAyA, changed by reducing their allomorphs in modern Turkish. Third, we demonstrate that Arabic and Persian pluralization rules, which constituted 28% of plural nouns in Ottoman Turkish, lost their pluralizing function in modern Turkish, although the words remain with singular meaning.

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