Özet
On the Etymology of the Old Turkish tapa
Old Turkic morpheme tapa, almost in all of the discussions, has been defined as “towards, against”, and it is etymological development has been explained through the morphological process of tap-a (verb-converb). The same explanation argues that the morphemes in this development formed tapa with the meaning of “to find”. As far as I could follow, the only explanation that criticizes this view, without drawing a conclusion, was expressed by Hamilton (1998). The incompatibility between the formation of tapa, which is accepted as the etymological development of it, and its essential meaning, is the starting point of this paper. For the sake of the solution of the above-mentioned problem, an etymological explanation based on the formation as tap+a = (noun+case suffix) has been proposed and the tap+ morpheme, which plays the main role in this explanation, has been combined with the meanings of “bottom/base > side > on the contrary” by establishing its relation with other members of the semantic field to which it belongs. Accordingly, the relation of tap with its Chuvash equivalent pat, which based on metathesis, has been emphasized.
Anahtar Kelimeler
Old Turkish, etymon, etymology, tapa, tap.