Issues of comparative Uralic and Altaic Studies (3) : The Turkic plural in *-s

Abstract

Apart from the Common Turkic plural marker *-lAr, the Turkic languages, including Chuvash, show traces of an older plural marker that may be reconstructed as *-s, represented as (*)-z in Common Turkic and as (*)-r in Bulghar Turkic. This marker has been controversial, postulated by some and rejected by other Turkologists. Applying the method of internal reconstruction, the present paper shows that there is no reason to deny its existence in Pre-Proto-Turkic. In the modern Turkic languages it is preserved in several types of nominal lexemes, including pronouns, numerals, names of body parts, and occasional other nouns.