Neurolinguistic & psycholinguistic investigations on evidentiality in Turkish

iv 
Acknowledgements 
Studying evidentiality has been my passion last few years. I am so grateful 
that Roelien Bastiaanse, my supervisor and promoter, encouraged me to 
work on evidentiality. This thesis would not have been possible without her 
exceptional supportive attitude and eagerness to share her wisdom. I heartily 
thank Claudia Felser for accepting to be my second supervisor during and 
beyond my mobility at the University of Potsdam. I am grateful to Ayhan 
Aksu-Koç, who was my co-supervisor during my masters’ studies, for 
invaluable discussions about evidentiality during various stages of my PhD, 
from which this thesis has benefitted abundantly. This thesis would not have 
been possible without İlknur Maviş who kindly accepted to collaborate with 
us on our aphasia projects. I am filled with gratitude that she helped while I 
assessed patients with aphasia and that from her involvement I gained many 
invaluable experiences. I am grateful to Dörte de Kok for all the help and 
supervision she had done for me during the first year of my PhD.
Although we have never met in person, I should be giving my 
sincere regards to Alexandra Aikhenvald for writing such a seminal book on 
evidentiality (OUP, 2004) that had turned into a 
holy book
for me during the 
last three years.
I heartily thank IDEALAB directors, namely, Roelien Bastiaanse, 
David Howard, Barabara Höhle, Gabriele Miceli, and Lyndsey Nickels for 
bringing together wonderful means for us to conduct research across three 
continents, five main universities and over fifteen research centers and 
associate partner institutions. In particular, I would like to express my 
sincere gratitude to Gabriele Miceli and Lyndsey Nickels who organized the 
winter schools in Trento and Sydney, respectively. I am also very grateful to 
my IDEALAB colleges and professors for their constant feedback on the 
data that conformed this thesis. I express my warm thanks to Harald 
Clahsen for allowing me to be a part of Potsdam Research Center for 
Multilingualism (PRIM) as well as for the trust he have put in me and for 
his very supportive attitude.

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v 
I thank my colleagues from the IDEALAB program for their sincere 
friendship: Adrià, Ana, Farnoosh, Jakolien, Jinxing, Katharina, Leigh, 
Laura, Miren, Michela, Nastia, Rimke, Rui, Kata, Fleur, and Srdjan. I owe a 
lot to (past) members of the Neurolinguistics Group at the University of 
Groningen: Roel, Dörte, Toivo, Tom, Silvia, Stéfanie, Camilla, and Alice. I 
feel very contented to have met my colleagues at the PRIM: Anna, Clare, 
Gunnar, Judith, Joao, Sol, Mona, Vera, Yulia, and Michaela. I am also very 
grateful to members and associates of Groningen Turkish Students 
Association for their endless friendship: Turhan başgan, Funda, Yağız, 
Veclal, Meniz, Yiğit, Hasan, Arman, and many others who I have not yet 
mentioned. I am particularly indebted to Burcu Arslan and Elif Bamyacı for 
several occasions of very fruitful discussions on evidentiality (and for the 
drinks). 
Collecting the data reported in this dissertation required me to travel 
to many places: Groningen, Berlin, Eskişehir, Amsterdam, and so on. A big 
‘thanks’ goes to all the participants who volunteered to take part in our 
experiments and surveys.
I am indebted to Ria de Bleser, Kees de Bot, Ayşe Gürel, and Pieter 
Muysken for kindly accepting to be in my assessment committee. My 
sincere appreciation also goes to organizers of the Science of Aphasia 
conference, Aphasia Young Day, and to the members of Netherlands 
Aphasia Foundation (SAN) for allowing me to present our data and get 
feedback on it from several other colleagues and researchers. I express my 
sincere gratitude to members and teachers of GraduatFe School for 
Behavioral and Cognitive Neurosciences (BCN) and Neuroimaging Center 
Groningen (NIC) for their help.
Last, but not the least, I thank my dear wife, Pınar, who never 
suspended her support and confidence in me. I also thank her for being the 
‘female native speaker voice’ of our experimental stimuli sentences, and for 
her endless support during recruiting participants. This thesis would never 
have been possible without her standing by me.

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