Vowel Hiatus Resolution in Azarbaijani Turkish

This article studies different strategies applied in the Azarbaijani Turkish for resolving vowel hiatus. Because Azarbaijani Turkish is an agglutinative language and in this type of languages, it is common to add several affixes to stems, by adding suffixes to stems and other suffixes and also by making compound words, vowel hiatus may occur. The data related to vowel hiatus in this language (Meshkin Shahr dialect) were collected and treated using Optimality Theory. The results of data revealed that according to morphological, phonological and semantic condition, different phonological patterns are used to avoid V+V sequences. In making compound words, V1  is deleted, in adding monophonemic suffixes to stems or The preceding suffix, epenthesis occurs, in adding complex suffixes with [+high] vowels, V2 (suffix vowel) is deleted and in adding complex suffixes with [-high] vowels, epenthesis occurs. Results of this research show that in this language, the onset of stem is prominent and V is preserved in this position, in addition to preserve its semantic and grammatical role, it is impossible to delete monophonemic suffixes.