Word-formation mechanisms in Azerbaijani and world languages: A comparative morphological study

Ramila Farajova
Abstract

This research paper presented an extensive and in-depth comparative examination of word-formation mechanisms in the Azerbaijani language in relation to several major world languages, specifically English, Russian, German, Turkish, and Persian. By situating Azerbaijani within a broader cross-linguistic framework, the study aimed to elucidate both typological particularities and universal patterns in morphological processes. The methodology integrated cognitive morphological analysis, corpus-based investigation, computational and digital resource modelling, and cross-linguistic typological comparison to investigate Azerbaijani morphological structures. The research demonstrated that Azerbaijani preserved its core agglutinative structure while developing hybrid formations through loan-affix integration, showing increased frequency of mixed morphological chains in digital corpora and expanding productive affixation patterns in response to contact-driven lexical influx. Empirical analysis showed that Azerbaijani morphology was both flexible and resilient, capable of generating novel lexical items and accommodating semantic shifts in response to social, technological, and intercultural developments. These findings underscored the dual character of morphological evolution: it revealed itself as universal in its structural tendencies while being uniquely shaped by the cultural and linguistic context of Azerbaijani speakers. By situating Azerbaijani morphology within the comparative landscape of world languages, this study contributed to a deeper understanding of cross-linguistic creativity, typological variation, and the interplay between morphology and sociolinguistic dynamics, offering insights relevant to theoretical linguistics, language teaching, and applied lexicography. The practical value of this research lies in providing linguists, lexicographers, educators, and digital language-technology developers with empirically grounded models of Azerbaijani word-formation that can be directly applied to dictionary compilation, curriculum design, automated morphology processing, and the development of NLP tools such as morphological analysers and spell-checkers

Keywords

agglutinative structure; typological contrast; lexical innovation; contact-induced change; affix productivity; digital corpora; cross-linguistic creativity

Suggested citation
Farajova, R. (2025). Word-formation mechanisms in Azerbaijani and world languages: A comparative morphological study. International Journal of Philology, 16(3), 48-60. https://doi.org/10.31548/philolog/3.2025.48
References
  1. Abdullayeva-Nebiyeva, V. (2025). Cultural determinants and grammatical outcomes in the Azerbaijani: An analysis of sociolinguistic influence on Turkic grammar. Path of Science, 11(4), 4028-4032. doi: 10.22178/pos.116-35.
  2. Beck, D. (2017). The typology of morphological processes: Form and function. In A.Y. Aikhenvald & R.M.W. Dixon (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of linguistic typology (pp. 325-360). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/9781316135716.011.
  3. Booij, G. (2018). The construction of words. In B. Dancygier (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of cognitive linguistics (pp. 229-245). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press doi: 10.1017/9781316339732.016.
  4. British National Corpus. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.english-corpora.org/bnc/.
  5. Durkin, P. (Ed.). (2015). The Oxford handbook of lexicography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199691630.001.0001.
  6. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institute of Linguistics. (n.d.). Corpus linguistics: Corpora links. Retrieved from https://www.linguistik.hu-berlin.de/en/institut-en/professuren-en/ korpuslinguistik/links-en/korpora_links.
  7. Huseynova, M. (2019). Language contacts of Azerbaijani and Kazakh Turkic languages (on the basis of Azerbaijani dialectologist, academician Mammadaga Shiraliyev’s creative works). Turkic Studies Journal, 1(2), 34-40. doi: 10.32523/tsj.02-2019/2-4.
  8. Ismoilova, C. (2025). The foundations of Turkish word formation: A semantic approachInternational Journal of Artificial Intelligence, 1(5), 1581-1583.
  9. Jalilbayli, O.B. (2022). Philosophy of linguistic culture and new perspectives in modern Azerbaijani linguistics. Futurity Philosophy, 1(4), 53-65. doi: 10.57125/FP.2022.12.30.05.
  10. Kornfilt, J. (2002). The Turkic languages (Routledge language family descriptions). Journal of Linguistics, 38(2), 397-439. doi: 10.1017/S0022226702251622.
  11. LópezCouso, M.J. (2016). Corpora and online resources in English historical linguistics. In M. Kytö & P. Pahta (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of English historical linguistics (pp. 127-145). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9781139600231.009.
  12. Milli Arxiv İdarəsi. (n.d.). Publication and use of documents. Retrieved from http://www. milliarxiv.gov.az/az/news/senedlerin-nesri-ve-istifadesi.
  13. Mirzayeva, A. (2021). A phytonymic phraseology and linguocultural features of paremiological units. Langua: Journal of Linguistics, Literature, and Language Education, 4(2), 39-44. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.5540285.
  14. Nasirova, U., Hasanova, S., & Dashdemirova, P. (2023). Phonetic rules in the Azerbaijani language. ASES International Journal of Culture, Art and Literature, 2(1), 33-39. doi: 10.5281/ zenodo.10492377.
  15. National Corpus of Azerbaijani Language. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://korpus.azerbaycandili.az/.
  16. Özenç, B., Ehsani, R., & Solak, E. (2018). MorAz: An open-source morphological analyzer for Azerbaijani Turkish. In E. Blanco & W. Lu (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2018 conference on empirical methods in natural language processing: System demonstrations (pp. 25-29). Brussels: Association for Computational Linguistics. doi: 10.18653/v1/D18-2005.
  17. Plag, I. (2025). Productivity and the mental lexicon. In A.J. Merrison, P. Griffiths & A. Bloomer (Eds.), Language in use (pp. 106-115). London: Routledge.
  18. Rakhimova, G.Y. (2023). Functional semantics of English reduplicative elements. International Journal of Applied Linguistics and Translation, 9(3), 90-92. doi: 10.11648/j.ijalt.20230903.12.
  19. Russian National Corpus. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://ruscorpora.ru/en.
  20. Sokolova, S., Birzer, S., Ignateva, A., & Kibisova, E. (2025). Suffix diversity: Investigating the morphological landscape of Russian loan verbs. Russian Linguistics, 49, article number 17. doi: 10.1007/s11185-025-09324-8.
  21. Toraman, C., Yılmaz, D., & Şahinuç, A. (2022). Evaluating morphological compositional generalization in large language models for agglutinative languages. ArXivdoi: 10.48550/ arXiv.2410.12656.
  22. Tsanko, I. (2025). Corpora and the study of language evolution: A historical linguistics perspective. SWorldJournal, 4(30-04), 122-129. doi: 10.30888/2663-5712.2025-30-04-041.
  23. Turkish National Corpus. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.tnc.org.tr/