HISTORICAL VIEW OF CARDINAL VOWELS IN TURKISH

Turkish is a rich language in terms of presence of vowels. There are eight vowels that originated from the relationship between palatalité, aperture and labialité in terms of their characteristics in general Turkish. These are /a/, /e/, / /, /i/, /o, / /, /u/ and /ü/. In general, /a/, /i/ and /u/ are considered as cardinal vowels in Turkish. According to this viewpoint, Turkish has a triple vowel system consisting of /a/, /i/ and /u/ in the periods when Turkish could not be pursued in writing. /e/, / /, /o, / / and /ü/ vowels have also originated from these three cardinal vowels. Thus, our study is limited to a/, /i/ and /u/ vowels. Periodical restriction of the study is Historical Turkish Dialects K ktürk, Uighur, Karakhanid, Khorezmian, Kipchak, Chagatai and Old Oghuz Turkic languages) In this study we are aiming to determine the following; 1. Sources of /a/, /i/ and /u/ vowels in the historical Turkish dialects, 2. Presence of /a/, /i/ and /u/ vowels in the first syllables and other than first syllables, 3. Sound events taking place in the /a/, /i/ and /u/ vowels and their reasons, 4. relations of /a/, /i/ and /u/ vowels among themselves and with the consonants, 5. whether or not /a/, /i/ and /u/ vowels and sound events taking place in these vowels are determinative within a historical dialect.