Metonymic Clothing Names in Old and Middle Turkish Texts

Abstract

There are two main ways to name objects, concepts, events or states. The first of these is to use borrowing words and the other is to use the words existing in language. The words existing in language can be a name for any entity by derivation, combination or semantic change. When it comes to semantic change, the concepts metonymy and metaphor appear. In Turkish linguistics tradition is metonymy which is defined as "without use of a concept to describe a concept that is related to another through" usually known as ad aktarması, adaktarımı, düzdeğişmece or mecâz-ı mürsel. There is a considerable amount of metonymic nomenclature in the vocabulary of the Turkish language. The use of word boyun, a Turkish organ name, in the meaning of "dress collar" or the word Beştepe, a Turkish place name, in the meaning of "presidential authority" are the first examples to mind. In this context, the significant amount of metonymic nomenclature is also seen in clothing names. When clothing names used in different periods of the Turkish language are studied in terms of lexical-semantic, a significant part of them seem to be influenced by the phenomenon of metonymy. The subject of this article is the metonymic clothing names in Old and Middle Turkish periods. Within the scope of our work twenty four texts of the Old and Middle Turkish periods written in different typeslike literary, didactic, dictionary etc. have been searched. As a result of research, it was found that metonymy has been effective in clothing names.