Manifestation of Simple Noun Phrase in Azeri Turkish Based on Role and Reference Grammar

In this study the construction of Azeri Turkish noun phrase is investigated in the frame work of Role and Reference Grammar and Van Valin's (2005) theoretical pattern. In this research, the data have been selected from written sources and by listening to the Azeri speakers' conversations in eastern Azerbaijan province. Only sentences containing simple noun phrases have been chosen using a purposive sampling method. Data analyses indicated that the simple noun phrase in Azeri Turkish consists of one or several dependents. In Azeri Turkish, the dependents either fall before or after the noun phrase nucleus, and there are constraints for their collocating together. A simple noun phrase includes layers, namely nucleus, core and a noun phrase, preceding and following peripheries with operators, and preceding additions. Various adjectives, including descriptive, objective, object of preposition(genitive), honor titles, reduplicative adjective, possessive adjective, reflexive pronouns, noun as adjective, quantifiers and appositives are at the peripheries of the noun nucleus. Noun complement mark, prepositional phrases, comparative and superlative adjectives, ambiguous(indefinite) adjectives, negation mark, numeral adjective, plural marks and all the words referring to the quantity of a noun are noun core operators. Demonstrative adjectives, definite and indefinite articles are noun phrase operators. Data analyses have shown that there are some characteristics that are specific to this grammar and are not seen in other formal and traditional grammars, and the relationship of various elements according to different layers of the noun phrase and its relationship with the core, nucleus and noun phrase can be explained.