A Grammar of Turkish Sign Language (TİD)

This publication is one of the products of “The SIGN-HUB project: preserving, researching and fostering the linguistic, historical and cultural heritage of European Deaf signing communities with an integral resource” (Grant Agreement 693349) which took place between 2016 and 2020 and was funded by the European Commission within the Horizon 2020 framework program.

We thank Josep Quer (coordinator of the project and the co-leader of the task responsible for online grammars with Meltem Kelepir) and Carlo Cecchetto (leader of the working package responsible for the linguistic content of the project with Meltem Kelepir) for their guidance, and the project managers Jordina Sánchez Amat and Giorgia Zorzi for their patience and infinite support in all aspects of the project. We also thank the project advisory board members Diane Brentari, Diane Lillo-Martin, Karen Emmorey, Manfred Krifka, and Tobias Haug, the project officer Jarkko Siren for their support, the project reviewers Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen, Gladys Tang, Myriam Vermeerbergen, and Peter Max Wittenburg for their invaluable feedback. The SignGram project (Cost Action IS1006) made the SignGram Blueprint possible, which in turn provided the foundation of the structure and style of this grammar.

A Grammar of Turkish Sign Language (TİD) is the product of hard work accomplished in a limited time by a group of senior and junior researchers: Kadir Gökgöz (Boğaziçi University), Aslı Göksel (Boğaziçi University), Demet Kayabaşı (Boğaziçi University), Meltem Kelepir (Boğaziçi University), Onur Keleş (Boğaziçi University), Okan Kubus (Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences), Aslı Özkul (Bilgi University & Boğaziçi University), A. Sumru Özsoy (Boğaziçi University), Burcu Saral (Boğaziçi University),  Hande Sevgi (Boğaziçi University), and Süleyman S. Taşçı (Boğaziçi University & Koç University).

This grammar would not have been possible without the invaluable contribution of TİD signers who generously shared with us their linguistic intuitions:  We would like to thank Özgür Akbulut, Yağmur Nisa Akbulut, Kahraman Anar, Osman Dağlı, Buket Ela Demirel, Nejla Demirtaş, Büşra Dilsiz, Jale Erdul, Gizem Gür, Sayat Kalayciyan, Özlem Köprübaşı, Canan Metin, Neveda Öner, Elvan Tamyürek Özparlak, Kuntay Özparlak, Filiz Birinci Sezer, Demet Terzi, Ali Ülker, Burcu Yaman, Bahar Yeşil, Gül Yiğit, and Yasin Yiğit.

Special thanks to Elvan Tamyürek Özparlak who worked in many aspects of the development of the grammar. Her contributions include, but are not limited to, discussing various linguistic points with the researchers in the team, helping the researchers prepare data elicitations tasks, acting as the interlocutor during grammatical data elicitation tasks with language consultants, annotating a large amount of data with the ELAN tool, acting as the model of most of the hundreds of visual examples available in the grammar, and for always being a fun and supportive colleague.

We would also like to thank Gül Yiğit and Demet Kayabaşı for their invaluable support. Gül Yiğit discussed a number of linguistic phenomena with the researchers and acted as the interlocutor in some of the data elicitation tasks. Demet Kayabaşı provided crucial help during the last phases of the editing process. Büşra Yakut and Simge Topaloğlu contributed considerably to the literature survey and the production of annotated bibliography that built the foundation of writing of the sections based on the existing research findings.

We would like to thank Murat Çelikkan and Armen Marsoobian for their help in directing us to some of the sources we used in writing the sections on the Martha King Memorial School for the Deaf, in Socio-Historical Background, Chapter 1 (History).

We are grateful to our colleagues at the Department of Linguistics for sharing with us the joy and excitement of being part of SIGN-HUB, for their patience, understanding, and much appreciated support during the times when our efforts had to focus on the tasks of the project.

The original research conducted during SIGN-HUB relied not only on the data collected during the project but also on the corpus of recordings collected during an earlier project, TİDBİL (funded by TÜBİTAK with the project number 11K314, and coordinated by A. Sumru Özsoy). Most of these earlier data have been annotated with ELAN during SIGN-HUB and contributed to novel discoveries of linguistic generalizations that provided input to a number of sections in this grammar. The data elicitation tasks during SIGN-HUB and the production of visual examples have been made possible thanks to the A. Sumru Özsoy Sign Language Lab at the Department of Linguistics at Boğaziçi University.

In addition, we would like to extend our thanks to provosts Lale Akarun and Ayşın Baytan Ertüzün, the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Nilgün Işık, and the research officers at the Technology Transfer Office, Dilek Akgün and Öznur Kaptan, at Boğaziçi University, for their support and guidance throughout the project.

Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to Burcu Saral. It would not be wrong to say that Burcu has contributed to every section, every line, every example of this grammar in some way: from writing sections to recording the visuals, from providing feedback to the development of the grammar tool, to uploading and checking descriptions and examples. Without her meticulous work, rare conscientiousness, endless energy, and positive attitude, the editing process of this grammar could not have been completed in the way it has been.