Turkish grammar

Turkish is a highly agglutinative language, i.e. Turkish words have many grammatical suffixes or endings that determine meaning. Turkish vowels undergo vowel harmony. When a suffix is attached to a stem, the vowel in the suffix generally agrees in frontness or backness and in roundedness with the last vowel in the stem.

Introduction

Suffixes

A suffix (ek) is attached to a stem (gövde). A stem may be a root (kök) or further analyzable. The suffixes used in Turkish fall roughly into two classes: constructive suffixes (yapım ekleri) and inflectional suffixes (çekim ekleri). A constructive suffix makes a new word from an old one, that is, it is a derivational suffix. An inflectional suffix indicates how a word is used in a sentence. The article on Turkish grammar pertains chiefly to inflectional suffixes. The article on Turkish vocabulary treats the constructive suffixes.

A Turkish suffix can be called enclitic if its vowel undergoes vowel harmony, agreeing with the last vowel of the stem the suffix is attached to.

Gender

Turkish is a gender-neutral language except for a few sex-specific compound words (mostly naming professions). The English third-person singular pronouns she, he, and it all correspond to a single Turkish pronoun, o. Since many given names in Turkish are also gender-neutral, it is possible to describe someone without their sex being made known.

Person

Turkish has a strong T–V distinction and usage of honorifics. Turkish uses second-person pronouns that distinguish varying levels of politeness, social distance, age, courtesy or familiarity toward the addressee. The plural second-person pronoun and verb forms are used referring to a single person out of respect, as is done in French, Russian and in Greek.

T–V distinction

Family members and friends speak to one another using the second singular person sen, and adults use sen to address minors. In formal situations (meeting people for the first time, business, customer-clerk, colleagues) plural second-person siz is used almost exclusively. In very formal situations, double plural second-person sizler may be used to refer to a much-respected person. Rarely, third-person plural conjugation of the verb (but not the pronoun) may be used to emphasize utmost respect. In the imperative, there are three forms: second person singular for informal, second person plural for formal, and double plural second person for very formal situations. Thus, the imperative forms of the verb gelmek, "to come", are gel (second person singular, informal), gelin (second person plural, formal), and geliniz (double second-person plural, very formal). The very formal forms are not frequently used.

Honorifics

Turkish honorifics generally follow the first name, especially if they refer to gender or particular social statuses (e.g. Name Bey (Mr.), Name Hanım (Ms.), Name Hoca (teacher or cleric)). Such honorifics are used both in formal and informal situations. A newer honorific is Sayın, which precedes the surname or full name, and is not gender-specific. (e.g. Sayın Name Surname, or Sayın Surname, or Sayın Name Bey/Hanım). They are generally used in very formal situations. While these honorifics are normally used in pre-position to Turkish names, foreign surnames are preceded by Bay (Mr.) or Bayan (Ms.): Bay Mulder, Bayan Scully (cf. Fox Bey, Dana Hanım, if these first names were Turkish).[1]

Turkish terminology

In the Turkish terms for the constructive and inflectional endings, three roots are involved:

For the last two verbal roots, the constructive suffix -im can be added to form nouns for instances of the actions denoted by the roots:

Either of these nouns can be compounded with the noun ek, resulting in an indefinite compound (belirtisiz tamlama), the sign of which is the inflectional suffix -i attached to ek:

The inflectional suffix -ler comes before the -i to form the plural, so yapım ekleri, çekim ekleri.

Many words in Turkishparticularly many grammatical termsare neologisms invented to replace earlier words borrowed from Arabic or Persian. (See the main article on Turkish language.) In some cases, the older term continues to be in use alongside the neologism.

Parts of speech

There are nine parts of speech (söz türleri "word-kinds") in Turkish.

  1. noun (isim or ad "name");
  2. pronoun (zamir "inner being", or adıl from ad);
  3. adjective (sıfat "role, quality", or önad "front-noun");
  4. verb (fiil "act, deed", or eylem "action" from eyle- "make, do").
  5. adverb (zarf "envelope", or belirteç from belir- "determine");
  6. postposition (ilgeç from ilgi "interest, relation");
  7. conjunction (bağlaç from bağ "bond");
  8. particle (edat, or ilgeç);
  9. interjection (nidâ [obsolete], or ünlem from 'ün "fame, repute, sound").

Postpositions are analogous to prepositions in English, the main difference being that they follow their objects. Postpositions can be considered particles, but there are particles in Turkish that are not postpositions.

Only nouns, pronouns and verbs are inflected in Turkish. An adjective can usually be treated as a noun or pronoun, in which case it can also be inflected. Inflection can give a noun features of a verb such as person and tense. With inflection, a verb can become one of the following:

These have peculiarities not shared with other nouns, adjectives or adverbs. For example, some participles take a person the way verbs do. Also, a verbal noun or adverb can take a direct object. Some verbal nouns are not inflected forms in Turkish, but are borrowed from Arabic or other languages.

A noun or pronoun alone can make a complete sentence. For example,

köpek "dog"; Köpek. "It is a dog."

Most dictionaries list verbs in their infinitive form, which alone usually cannot form complete sentences. For example,

koşmak "(to) run".

However, instead of the infinitive, the Redhouse Turkish–English Dictionary gives the stem of a verb as its headword, and the present article follows this convention. The verb-stem is also the second-person singular imperative:

koş- "run"; Koş! "Run!"

Both a noun and a verb, without endings, can alone form a sentence.

Many verbs are formed from nouns by addition of -le. For example,

köpekle- "dog paddle" (in any of several ways).  

The aorist tense of a verb is formed by adding -(i/e)r. The plural of a noun is formed by suffixing -ler. Hence:

Köpek + ler           "(They are) dogs."
Köpekle + r           "S/he dog paddles."

Thus -ler can indicate either a plural noun or a finite verb.

Most adjectives can be treated as nouns or pronouns. For example,

genç "young" or "young person" or "the young person referred to".  

An adjective or noun can stand, as a modifier, before a noun. If the modifier is a noun (but not a noun of material), then the second noun word takes the inflectional suffix -i:

ak diş   "white tooth";
altın diş    "gold tooth";
köpek dişi "canine tooth".

Comparison of adjectives is not done by inflecting adjectives or adverbs, but by other means (described below).

Adjectives can serve as adverbs, sometimes by means of repetition:

yavaş "slow"; yavaş yavaş "slowly".

Word order

A general rule of Turkish word order is that the modifier precedes the modified:

Although the most common order of Turkish transitive sentences is subject–object–verb (SOV), all six permutations are valid (the subject and object are distinguished by case suffixes). The word order serves to express the theme and focus (rheme) of the sentence. The sentence initial portion is associated with the topic, the position just before the verb is used for the focus, and the post verbal position is used for background or clarifying information [2][3]

The following sentences illustrate how Subject-Object-Verb order changes meaning. In the English translations given here, the focus of the sentence is given in all capitals, while the background information (known from earlier in the discourse) is given in parenthesis.

Meanings may be different depending on emphasis.

In one study, only about half of the transitive sentences used by a sample of Turkish speakers were found to be in the SOV order.[4]

When a sentence has a multiple informational components, the stressed component is positioned just before the verb:

Morpheme order

The order of morphemes in Turkish is often opposite to English:

Turkish English Comment
Avrupa Europe
Avrupalı of Europe / European adjective (European)
Avrupalılaş become European verb root (become European)
Avrupalılaştır to cause to become European / Europeanize verb root (Europeanize)
Avrupalılaştırama be unable to Europeanize verb root
Avrupalılaştıramadık we were unable to Europeanize 1st person plural
Avrupalılaştıramadığımız one that we were unable to Europeanize noun
Avrupalılaştıramadıklarımız those that we were unable to Europeanize plural
Avrupalılaştıramadıklarımız those of ours that we were unable to Europeanize possessive
Avrupalılaştıramadıklarımızdan of those of ours that we were unable to Europeanize ablative case
Avrupalılaştıramadıklarımızdanmış is reportedly of those of ours that we were unable to Europeanize copula in inferential tense
Avrupalılaştıramadıklarımızdanmışsınız you are reportedly of those of ours that we were unable to Europeanize 2nd person plural/formal
Avrupalılaştıramadıklarımızdanmışsınızcasına as if you are reportedly of those of ours that we were unable to Europeanize Adverb of equalization/possibility

The above example is also illustrative of the productive nature of Turkish suffixes in creating new verbs, nouns, etc. Note how the word Avrupalılaştıramadık is a verb, an adjective and a noun; the morphologic parse shown above implies that this word is transformed from a verb to an adjective to a noun, in order to then accept noun-specific suffixes.

The longest published word in Turkish, muvaffakiyetsizleştiricileştiriveremeyebileceklerimizdenmişsinizcesine, means "as if you are one of those that we can not easily convert into an unsuccessful-person-maker" (i.e., someone who un-educates people to make them unsuccessful).

Inflectional suffixes

The plural suffix (çoğul eki) can be used with nouns and with third-person verbs:

Plural suffix
-ler

The case-endings (durum ekleri from dur- "stop, last", or hâl ekleri from hâl "state, condition") can be named (in English) and used roughly as in Latin:

Case-endings
absolute (yalın "bare" durum)
definite accusative (belirtme "clarifying" durumu) -(y)i
dative (yönelme "going-towards" durumu) -(y)e
locative (bulunma "being-found" durumu) -de
ablative (çıkma "going-out" durumu) -den
genitive (tamlayan "compounding" eki) -(n)in

If a case-ending is attached to a demonstrative pronoun (which ends in o or u), or to a noun that has already taken a third-person ending of possession (given below), then the case-ending is preceded by n (and the parenthetical y is not used).

Nouns are derived from verbs in several ways. The number of ways of forming verbal nouns (fiil isimleri) from verb-stems can be debated; here are three:

Verbal-noun suffixes
infinitive (mastar "template") -mek
gerund -me
Way of doing VERB -iş

Several series of endings show distinctions of person (kişi); they are given here, along with the personal pronouns for comparison:

Indicators of person
person123
numbersingplsingplsing/plpl
personal pronouns benbizsensizoonlar
suffixes of possession (iyelik ekleri) -(i)m-(i)miz-(i)n-(i)niz-(s)i-leri
personal endings (kişi ekleri) predicative (I) -(y)im-(y)iz-sin-siniz-ler
verbal (II) -m-k-n-niz-ler
optative (III) -(y)eyim-(y)elim-(y)esin-(y)esiniz-(y)e-(y)eler
imperative (IV)   -(y)in(iz)-sin-sinler

The names given to the personal endings here are not standard. These endings are often just referred to as type I, II, III, and IV respectively; but the order in which the types are numbered is also not standard. Lewis (1967) refers to the suffixes of possession as "personal" endings.

In the third person, plural number is not always explicitly marked, and the same form is used for both singular and plural. If the plural suffix -ler is used, it combines with the personal endings as indicated in the final column of the table.

A suffix of possession gives the person of a possessor of the object named by the noun to which the suffix is attached; it also indicates a subject for a participle.

A predicative ending can assign a person to a noun, thus creating a complete sentence: insan "human"; İnsanım. "I am a human." See also Copula#Turkish and Turkish copula.

All of the personal suffixes can be used in the formation of verbs. Verb-stems have been mentioned. A verb-base is obtained from a verb-stem by attachment of certain suffixes or characteristics given below. Then the personal endings here called "predicative" and "verbal" attach only to verb-bases; the optative and imperative endings attach to verb-stems.

Characteristics
with predicative endings progressive -mekte
necessitative -meli
aorist
(habitual)[5]
positive -(i/e)r
negative -mez
impotential -(y)emez
future -(y)ecek
inferential perfective -miş
imperfective [6] -iyor
with verbal endingsperfective[7] -di
conditional -se

The present characteristic is not fully enclitic: the first syllable shows vowel harmony, but the second is invariable. The aorist negative and impotential characteristics are given here because they are anomalous. Note, that the "-z" of the aorist negative (-mez) and impotential (-(y)emez) is dropped in the first-person singular and plural, in order to be able to suffix it. (Aorist negative first-person singular: -mem; BUT: Aorist impotential third-person plural: -(y)emezler)

See also #Negation and potential in verb-stems under #Verbs below.

Some third-person verbs are also participles. Participles can be classified as personal, if they take a suffix of possession, and impersonal, if they do not. The following suffixes attach to verb-stems:

Participial endings
 impersonalpersonal
aoristpositive -(i/e)r 
negative -mez
impotential -(y)emez
imperfective -(y)en
future -(y)ecek
perfective -miş-dik

The interrogative particle (soru eki) is not written as a suffix, but it is enclitic:

Interrogative particle
mi

Nouns

Inflection

A Turkish noun has no gender. The dictionary-form of a noun can take up to four (kinds of) #Inflectional suffixes, generally in the following order:

  1. plural suffix;
  2. suffix of possession (iyelik eki from iye "owner");
  3. case-ending;
  4. personal suffix (kişi eki from kişi "person").

Through its presence or absence, the plural ending shows distinctions of number.

Number

A noun is made plural by addition of -ler or -lar (depending on the vowel harmony). When a numeral is used with a noun, however, the plural suffix is usually not used:

baş           "head", 
başlar "[some] heads", 
beş baş  "five head(s)", but
Beşevler "Five Houses" (district of Bursa).

The plural ending also allows a family (living in one house) to be designated by a single member:

Aliler "Ali and his family"; 
teyze         "maternal aunt", 
teyzem     "my maternal aunt"; 
teyzemler  "my maternal aunt and her family".

In the last example, the first-person singular suffix of possession comes before the plural ending; this is an exception to the order of suffixes given above. In the usual order, we have

teyzelerim "my maternal aunts".

Nouns are pluralized in standard temporal greetings.

gün "day",    İyi günler! "Good day!"; 
yıl "year"; Mutlu yıllar! "Happy new year!"

Possession

As noted earlier, the suffixes of possession give the person (and number) of the possessor of what is named by the noun:

teyzen         "thy                    maternal aunt",
teyzeniz       "your(singular, formal)  maternal aunt"
teyzeniz       "your(plural)            maternal aunt"
teyzelerin     "thy(singular)          maternal aunts"
teyzeleriniz   "your(singular, formal)  maternal aunts"
teyzeleriniz   "your(plural)            maternal aunts"

When a word takes one of the endings of possession, the word becomes the name of something possessed, not possessing: the word for the possessor, if present, takes the genitive case-ending, as discussed below.

The plural ending will not be attached twice to the same word; therefore ambiguity is possible:

fikir       "idea", 
fikirleri   "their idea" or "their ideas" or "her [or his] ideas".

Ambiguity can be resolved with #Pronouns.

Case

The absolute case combines the uses of the nominative, vocative, and (in part) accusative cases. It is for subjects, and for names of people being addressed. It is also used for indefinite direct objects. Definite direct objects are in the definite-accusative case:

şiir                      "poem", so:
Şiir  okur "S/he reads  a  poem"; 
Şiiri okur "S/he reads the poem."

The dative case tells whither, that is, the place to which. Thus it has roughly the meaning of the English prepositions "to" and "into", and also "in" when it can be replaced with "into":

Birayı buzdolabına koy- "the-beer in-icebox put", that is,
                        "put the beer in the fridge". 

The dative also is for objects: usually indirect objects, but sometimes objects that in English would be considered direct:

Güneşin batışına bak- "sun's at-its-sinking look", that is,
                      "look at the sunset";
        hükümete güven- "in-government trust", that is,
                        "trust the government".

The locative case tells where, hence corresponds to the English prepositions "at" and "on", and "in" when it does not mean "into".

        evde "at home" (ev "house");
Buzdolabında dört bira var "in-icebox four beer exist," that is,
                           "There are four beers in the fridge."

The ablative case tells whence, that is, the place from which (or through which), hence:

kumdan yapılmış kale "of-sand made castle", that is, 
                     "castle made of sand";
açlıktan öl- "of-hunger die";

In the Turkish terminology, the genitive case indicates a "compounding" (tamlayan) word. The corresponding "compounded" (tamlanan) word will take the appropriate suffix of possession. The pair of these words is then a definite compound (belirtili tamlama):

         anne "mother", 
         annesi "her mother", 
Ayşe'nin annesi "Ayşe's mother".  

(The apostrophe in Turkish is used before suffixes attached to proper nouns.)

However, if two nouns are connected, but not by ownership, then the second noun generally takes an ending of possession, while the first takes no ending. The result is an indefinite compound (belirtisiz tamlama):

Türkiye'nin Cumhurbaşkanı "The President of Turkey" (definite); 
Türkiye       Cumhuriyeti "The Republic  of Turkey" (indefinite).

If one noun names a material, the other noun need not take an ending:

nikâh yüzüğü "wedding ring"; 
altın yüzük   "gold   ring".

Predication

If a noun is to be in the first or second person, one of the predicative suffixes (or type-I personal suffixes) will show this:

     Dünyayız "We are the world" (dünya "world").
Çocuklarsınız "You are the children" (çocuk "child").

In the third person, no ending is required. However, the ending -dir can be used; it is said (Lewis, 1967: VIII,3) to be the remnant of a verb turur "S/he stands". Again in the third person, the plural suffix may be used:

Türk    or Türktür    "S/he is      Turkish"; 
Türkler or Türktürler "They are     Turkish";
Türklerdir            "They are the Turks" (Lewis, 1967: VIII,5).

Several suffixes can be combined:

Evinizdeyim "I am at your house."
Ya benimsin, ya toprağın "Thou art either mine, or the earth's (that is, dead)." 

(The last was spotted on a minibus in Turkey.)

Verbal nouns

The infinitive, formed with -mek as noted earlier, does not take a suffix of possession, or the genitive case-ending. It does take all other case-endings. In particular, the progressive characteristic given earlier is the infinitive ending with the locative ending:

Konuşmaktayız "We are in (the act of) speaking."
Savaşmaktayız "We are in warmaking", that is, "We are at war."

The verbal noun in -me is called a gerund above, since it corresponds roughly to the English gerund. It can take a suffix of possession and any case-ending:

     bekleme    odası    "waiting room" (bekle- "wait"; oda "room").
     Beklemeniz lâzım    "Your-waiting necessary", that is, 
                         "You have to wait";
Sesini duymayı seviyorum "Thy-voice hearing I-love", that is, 
                         "I like to hear thy voice."

The dative form of a Turkish gerund can correspond precisely to an English infinitive with to:

 Ülkemizde      nano teknolojik    ürünler  üretilmeye     başlandı
"In-our-country nano technological products to-be-produced began"

that is, "Nano-technological products began to be produced in our country" (source: Cumhuriyet Bilim-Teknik 13 August 2005, p. 1).

Yet another verbal noun is from -iş:

  yürüyüş "walk, walking" (yürü- "walk");
    yağış "rain" (yağ- "rain");
alışveriş "getting [and] spending", that is, "shopping" 
          (al- "take" or "buy"; ver- "give" or "spend");
yaratılış "creation" (yara-    "be of use", 
                      yarat-   "create", 
                      yaratıl- "be created").

The verb et- "make, do" can be considered as an auxiliary verb, since for example it is often used with verbal nouns borrowed from other languages, such as Arabic:

  kabul et- "accept" (kabul "[an] accepting");
    reddet- "reject" (ret "[a] rejecting");
ziyaret et- "visit"  (ziyaret "[a] visiting").

Considered as units, these are transitive verbs; but the nouns in them can, by themselves, take direct objects:

Antalya'yı ziyaret "visit to Antalya".

What looks like an ablative gerund is usually an adverb; the ending -meden usually has the sense of "without". See #Adverbs below.

An infinitive in the absolute case can be the object of a verb such as iste- "want":

Kimi eğitime devam etmek,        "Some-of-them towards-education continuation make
kimi de         çalışmak istiyor.  some-of-them also work want"

that is, "Some want to continue their educations, and some want to work" (source: Cumhuriyet Pazar Dergi, 14 August 2005, p. 1.) Note here that the compound verb devam et- "continue, last" does not take a direct object, but is complemented by a dative noun.

Another way to express obligation (besides with lâzım as in the earlier example) is by means of zor "trouble, compulsion" and an infinitive:

Gitmek zoru "Go compulsion",
Gitmek zorundayız "We must go".

(Source: same as the last example.)

Both an infinitive and a gerund are objects of the postposition için "for" in the third sentence of the quotation within the following quotation:

Tesis yetkilileri,                               Facility its-authorities
"Bölge insanları genelde tutucu.                 "District its-people in-general conservative. 
 Sahil kesimleri                                  Shore its-sections    
 yola yakın olduğu için                           to-road near their-being for
 rahat bir şekilde göle giremiyorlar.             comfortable a in-form to-lake they-cannot-enter.
 Biz de                                           We also
 hem yoldan geçenlerin görüş açısını kapatmak     both from-road of-passers sight their-angle to-close
 hem de erkeklerin rahatsız etmemesi için         and men's uncomfortable their-not-making for
 paravan kullanıyoruz"                            screen we-are-using"
dedi.                                            they-said. 
Ancak paravanın aralarından                      But curtain's from-its-gaps
çocukların karşı tarafı gözetlemeleri            children's other side their-spying
engellenemedi.                                   cannot-be-hindered. 

(Source: Cumhuriyet, 9 August 2005, Tuesday, p. 1.) A free translation is:

The facility authorities said, "The people of this district [namely Edremit, Van] are generally conservative. They cannot enter the lake comfortably, because the shore areas are near the road. So we are using a screen, both to close off the view of passersby on the road, and so that men will not cause discomfort." However, children cannot be prevented from spying on the other side through gaps in the screen.

Auxiliary verbs

Certain verbs in Turkish are used to enhance the meaning of other verbs, or to agglutinate verbs from nouns. These verbs are called auxiliary verbs. A concise list follows:

Verbs that are used with nouns to agglutinate new verbs

Examples

* farz (assumption) -> farz etmek (to assume)
* hak (right) -> hak etmek (to deserve)
* af (amnesty) -> affetmek (to excuse)
* kayıp (loss) -> kaybetmek (to lose)
* terk (leaving) -> terk etmek (to leave)
* arz (submission, supply) -> arz etmek (to submit, to supply)

If there is a change in the noun root through the process of agglutination, it is written adjacently. These are mostly Arabic loan-words, which switch to their more original form.

In Turkish words, two consonants of a syllable need a vowel to be pronounced. There are exceptions in loan words only, but those that lost their original form are more common. This occurs in two ways:

If a word ends in two identical consonants, one is dropped, e.g. hall "state, status" becomes hal, aff "amnesty, forgiving" becomes af.

If a syllable ends in two different consonants, a vowel is added between them, e.g. hükm "judgement" becomes hüküm.

Exceptions: Words which end in nk, rt, rk, such as taht "throne", renk "colour", kart "card", do not add a vowel. Most of these are loan-words from Persian or western languages (but zevk "pleasure" from Arabic ذَوْق).

Examples:

* kayıp + et-  -> kaybetmek (to lose; kayıp "lost" was originally kayb, an Arabic loan-word) 
* haciz + et-  -> haczetmek (to sequestrate; haciz "sequestration" was originally hacz, an Arabic loan-word)
* haz   + et-  -> hazzetmek (to relish or to enjoy; haz "delight" was originally hazz, an Arabic loan-word)

Verbs that are used with other verbs to enhance the meaning:

Examples

* düş- (fall) -> düşeyazdım (I almost fell)
* git- (go) -> gidiverdim (I just went, je viens d'aller)
* yavaşla- (slow down) -> yavaşlayabilirim (I can slow down)
* yaz- (write) -> yazaduruyorlar (they keep on writing)
* söyle- (tell) -> söylenegelir (keeps being told)

Adjectives

Use

Adjectives used attributively precede the noun; used predicatively, they follow, unless something other than word-order shows that they are being used predicatively:

yeşil çim "[the] green grass"
Çim yeşil(dir) or Yeşildir çim "Grass is green."

In a positive comparison, the object takes the ablative case; the adverb daha "more" is optional, unless the object is left out.

tüyden (daha) hafif "lighter than a feather".

In a negative comparison, the adverb az "less" is needed; the object still takes the ablative; daha can still be used as well.

kurşundan (daha) az ağır "less heavy than lead"

The superlative degree is expressed by the adverb en "most".

en büyük yalancı "the biggest liar" (büyük "big", yalan "lie");
en az güvenilir "least trustworthy" (güven- "trust").

Descriptive adjectives

Most adjectives in the dictionary are descriptive. The most fundamental descriptive adjectives are two:

var"existing"
yok"not existing"

These are used only predicatively:

Gökte bir bulut yok "There is not a cloud in the sky";
Balcının var bal tası  "Honey-seller's exists honey his-pot 
Oduncunun var baltası  "Wood-cutter's exists his-axe."

(This is a proverbial expression: "The honey-seller has a honey-pot; the wood-cutter has an axe"; bal "honey", odun "(fire) wood", tas "bowl", balta "axe"; the more usual order would make the saying Balcının bal tası var, oduncunun baltası var).

Indefinite adjectives

The cardinal bir "one" can be used as an indefinite article. Word-order can make the difference:

güzel bir gün   "a nice day";
bir güzel gün "one fine day".

Unless it is being used by itself, elliptically, the adjective hiç "no" requires an additional word with negative force:

Hiç param yok'  "I have no money" (para "money");
Hiçbir adam ada değildir "No man is an island" (adam "man", ada "island", değil "not").
Bir şey görüyorum "I see something", but
Hiçbir şey göremiyorum  "I can't see anything."

Participles

It is noted under #Parts of speech that Turkish participles (sıfat-fiiller) can be classified as

In a personal participle, the suffix of possession signifies the subject of the underlying verb; if this possessor is third person, then the possessor may be further specified with a noun in the genitive case.

The noun modified by a personal participle as an adjective may be the direct object of the underlying verb; the connexion may also be more vague.

The noun modified by an impersonal participle is generally the subject of the underlying verb (but see Lewis (1967: IX,2)).

The aorist tense (geniş zaman "broad time") is for habitual actions; the present tense (şimdiki zaman "time that is now") is for actions ongoing or contemplated.

Aorist:

akarsu "water that flows", hence "stream" (ak- "flow", su "water");
akaryakıt "fuel oil" (yakıt "heating fuel");
çıkmaz "not going out, cul-de-sac";
inilir "got down from" (sign at rear door of bus; in- "go down")
sürdürülebilir turizm "tourism that can be continued", that is, "sustainable tourism" 
(sür "drive"; sürdür "continue")

Present:

geçen hafta "passing week", that is, "last week";
 Silahları çekip          "Guns pulling-out-and
 havaya ateş açan          to-air fire opening
 AKP'liler hakkında        AKP-members about-them
 yasal işlem başlatılmadı  legal process was-not-begun"

that is, "No legal process has begun concerning the AKP members who pulled out guns and fired them in the air" [Birgün Halkın Gazetesi, 25 July 2005]; for -ip see #Adverbs below.

Future:

 gelecek hafta "week that will come", that is, "next week";
okunacak   bir kitap "a book that will be read" (okun- "be read");
okuyacağım bir kitap "a book that I shall read" (oku- "read").

Past/present:

 okunmuş   bir kitap "a book that was read";
 okuduğum bir kitap "a book that I read/am reading";
'Yaşamın bittiği yer'de hayat "Life in the place where life ends." 

(The last example is a newspaper headline [Birgün, 20 July 2005] about cemetery workers; bit- "end"; yer "place"; hayat [Arabic] and yaşam [neologism from yaşa-] "life".)

A personal participle can be construed as a noun and used in parallel with verbal nouns:

Çocukların                                        
yüzde 68'i evinin ihtiyaçlarına katkıda bulunmak, 
yüzde 21'i ailesi istediği için,                  
yüzde altısı iş öğrenmek ve meslek edinmek için,  
yüzde 4'ü ihtiyaçlarını karşılaşmak için          
çalışıyor                                        
"Children's
 in-100 their-68 house's for-its-needs in-aid be-found,
 in-100 their-21 their-family that-they-wanted for,
 in-100 their-six work learn and profession be-made for,
 in-100 their-4 their-needs meet for
 are-working."

(Source: Birgün Halkın Gazetesi 13 August 2005, Saturday, p. 1.) That is,

Children are working, 68% to provide for their family's needs, 21% because their family wants it, 6% to learn a job or profession, 4% to meet their [own] needs.

The following sentence from a newspaper headline contains twenty-two words, nine derived from verbs, four of these as participles, three as gerunds. Note also the use of kontrol from French as a verbal noun with et-:

Türkiye'nin AB'ye girmemesi ve "Turkey's to-the-EU its-not-entering and
İslam dünyasına yaklaşması halinde Islam to-its-world its-drawing-near in-its-state
şeriatçılığın kucağına itilmiş sharia-favorer-ness's to-its-embrace pushed
olacağını that-it-will-be
söyleyen Fransız senatör Duireux, saying French senator Duireux,
İslami akımların Islamic current's
kontrol edilmesi control its-being-made
gerektiğini that-it-is-necessary
belirtti. he-made-clear."

Source: Cumhuriyet, 17 July 2005; more smoothly:

Saying that, by not joining the EU and by drawing close to the Islamic world, Turkey would be pushed into the lap of those who favor sharia, French senator Duireux made clear that it was necessary to control the Islamic tide.

Adverbs

The adverb of negation is değil. It is used to negate sentences that are without verb or var; then it takes the appropriate personal ending:

Evde değilim "I am not at home."

A number of adverbs are derived from verbs:

The ending -e is seen in:

Güle güle "[Go] smilingly" (said to somebody departing);
Güle güle kullanın "Use [it] smilingly" (said to somebody with a new acquisition);
Beşe çeyrek kala kalktım "To-five a-quarter remaining I-got-up", that is, 
                         "I got up at a quarter to five";
Onu yirmi geçe uyudun "You slept at twenty past ten" 
                      (uyu- "sleep", although uy- "heed").

The ending -erek denotes action at the same time as, or preceding, that of another verb:

Geceyi konuşarak geçirdik "The-night talking we-caused-to-pass", that is, 
                          "We spent the night talking."
Akıl yürüterek bu sonuca ulaşıyorum "By using reason, I arrived at this conclusion"

[the latter is Bülent Ecevit as quoted in Cumhuriyet, 20 July 2005].

Doğaya en az zarar vererek yaşamak "To live while giving the least harm to nature"

[Buğday magazine, 78/2005, no 32].

From ol- "be, become", olarak forms adverbial phrases corresponding to those in English with "as":

Size bir dost olarak söylüyorum "To-you a friend as I'm-telling", that is, 
                                "I'm telling you this as a friend";
ciddi olarak "seriously" (ciddi "serious").

The ending -meden on a verb-stem looks like the ablative gerund, but it is not (Lewis [XI,12]). It indicates an action not occurring at all, or following that of the main verb:

Bakmadan atlama "Don't leap without looking";
Bakmadan önce atlama "Don't leap before looking."
Bir soruyu cevaplamadan   tartışmak,
            tartışmadan  cevaplamaktan iyidir
"A particular-question without-answering     to-debate
                       without-debating from-to-answer is-good," that is,
"It is better to debate without answering than to answer without debating."

(Source of the last sentence: Joseph Joubert as quoted on p. 20 of Gündelik Bilmeceler by Partha Ghose and Dipankar Home, translated by Özlem Özbal, Tübitak Popüler Bilim Kitapları 25, Ankara, 1996.) Complementing önce "before" is sonra "after", which can follow a verb-stem given the ending -dikten:

Baktıktan sonra atla "After looking, leap";
Ayşe baktıktan sonra Neşe atladı "After Ayşe looked, Neşe lept."

Simultaneity is expressed by iken or its (not enclitic) suffixed form -(y)ken; but if it follows a verb, then the verb appears, not as a stem, but as a base; see #Bases of verbs:

Eve girmekteyken, bir şey hatırladım "As I was entering the house, I remembered something";
Ben eve girmekteyken, telefon çaldı "As I was entering the house, the telephone rang."

If two verbs of the same grammatical form have the same subject, the endings on the first verb can be replaced by -ip; see the example under #Participles.

Pronouns

The third-person personal pronoun o "she/he/it" is declined as if it were the noun on. The other persons, ben "I", sen "you (singular/informal)", biz "we", siz "you (plural/formal)", are declined like nouns, except for a vowel change in the dative, and an anomalous genitive; also the plural forms do not involve -ler:

singular plural
123123
absolute ben sen o biz siz onlar
accusative beni seni onu bizi sizi onları
dative bana sana ona bize size onlara
locative bende sende onda bizde sizde onlarda
ablative bendensendenondanbizdensizdenonlardan
genitive benim senin onun bizim sizin onların

The absolute case is generally needed only for emphasis:

            Nasılsınız? "How are you?"
İyiyim; siz nasılsınız? "I am fine; how are you?"
         Ben de iyiyim. "I too am fine."

The third-person pronoun can clear up an ambiguity mentioned above:

onların fikri            "their idea";
onların fikirleri       "their ideas";
   onun fikirleri "her [or his] ideas".

The pronoun o is also one of the demonstrative pronouns:

The latter two are declined like o (that is, treated as if they were bun and şun).

The interrogative pronouns (and adjectives) are:

These appear in embedded questions but do not serve as true relative pronouns:

Buzdolabında kaçtane var, o bilir "S/he knows how many are in the refrigerator."

There is a suffix -ki that acts as a relative pronoun in that it creates what, in English, would be called relative clauses. It does not display vowel harmony, except in a few common formations:

benimki "mine (that which is mine)";
buzdolabındaki bira "beer that is in the refrigerator" (no vowel harmony);
bugünkü "today's (which is today)" (with vowel harmony);
dünkü "yesterday's (which was yesterday)" (with vowel harmony).

The reflexive pronoun (dönüşlü zamir from dön- "turn") is kendi "own, self":

Kendi kendinden korkma "Do not be afraid of thyself."

Many of the indefinite adjectives can function as pronouns, taking case-endings.

Verbs

Copula

Main article: Turkish copula

Stems of verbs

Many stems in the dictionary are indivisible; others consist of endings attached to a root.

Verb-stems from nouns

The verb-stem temizle- "make clean" is the adjective temiz "clean" with the suffix -le; this suffix was mentioned earlier under #Parts of speech in connexion with the verb köpekle-. Many verbs are formed from nouns or adjectives with -le:

başla- "make a head", that is, "begin" (intransitive; baş "head");
kilitle- "make locked", that is, "lock" (kilit "lock");
kirle- "make dirty" (kir "dirt").

Voice

A verbal root, or a verb-stem in -le, can be lengthened with certain extensions. If present, they appear in the following order; they indicate distinctions of voice:

Extensions for voice
reflexive -(i)n 
reciprocal -(i)ş
causative -tafter polysyllabic stems in -l, -r, or a vowel; and
-dirin other cases; except:
-ir, -er, -itafter some monosyllabic stems; and
 there are some other exceptional forms as well.
passive -ilafter stems ending in a consonant other than -l; otherwise, same as reflexive.

These endings might seem to be inflectional in the sense of the #Introduction above, but their meanings are not always clear from their particular names, and dictionaries do generally give the resulting forms, so in this sense they are constructive endings.

The causative extension makes an intransitive verb transitive, and a transitive verb factitive. Together, the reciprocal and causative extension make the repetitive extension -(i)ştir.

bul- "find",
buluş- "meet",
bulun- "be present";
yıka- "wash [something else]",
yıkan- "wash oneself",
yıkanıl- "be washed";
kayna- "(come to a) boil",
kaynat- "(bring to a) boil";
öl- "die",
öldür- "kill",
öldürt- "have [someone] killed";
ara- "look for",
araştır- "investigate".

Negation and potential in verb-stems

A dictionary-stem is positive; it can be made:

Any of these three (kinds of) stems can be made potential by addition of -e and then -bil. The -bil is not enclitic, but represents the verb bil- "know, be able"; the first syllable of the impotential ending represents an obsolete verb u- "be powerful, able" #Lewis [VIII,55]. So far then, there are six kinds of stems:

Paradigm for stems negative, impotential and potential
 English infinitiveEnglish finite form
gel-"come""come"
gelme-"not come""do not come"
geleme-"be unable to come""cannot come"
gelebil-"be able to come""can come"
gelmeyebil-"be able not to come""may not come"
gelemeyebil-"able to be unable to come""may be unable to come"

Such stems are not used for aorist forms, which have their own peculiar means of forming negatives and impotentials.

Bases of verbs

The characteristics with which verb-bases are formed from stems are given under #Inflectional suffixes. Note again that aorist verbs have their own peculiar negative and impotential forms.

The progressive base in -mekte is discussed under #Verbal nouns. Another base, namely the necessitative (gereklilik), is formed from a verbal noun. The characteristic is -meli, where -li forms adjectives from nouns, and -me forms gerunds from verb-stems. A native speaker may perceive the ending -meli as indivisible; the analysis here is from #Lewis [VIII,30]).

The present base is derived from the ancient verb yorı- "go, walk" #Lewis [VIII,16]; this can be used for ongoing actions, or for contemplated future actions.

The meaning of the aorist base is described under #Adjectives from verbs: participles.

There is some irregularity in first-person negative and impotential aorists. The full form of the base -mez (or (y)emez) reappears before the interrogative particle mi:

Gelmem "I do not come" (cf. Gelmez miyim "Do I not come?");
Gelmeyiz "We do not come" (cf. Gelmez miyiz "Do we not come?")

The definite past or di-past is used to assert that something did happen in the past. The inferential past or miş-past can be understood as asserting that a past participle is applicable now; hence it is used when the fact of a past event, as such, is not important; in particular, the inferential past is used when one did not actually witness the past event.

A newspaper will generally use the di-past, because it is authoritative. The need to indicate uncertainly and inference by means of the miş-past may help to explain the extensive use of ki in the newspaper excerpt at Turkish vocabulary#The conjunction ki.

The conditional (şart) verb could also be called "hypothetical"; it is used for remote possibilities, or things one might wish for. (See also #Compound bases.)

The various bases thus give distinctions of tense, aspect and mood. These can be briefly tabulated:

First-person singular verbs
gelmekteyim"I am in the process of coming"
gelmeliyim"I must come"
gelirim"I come"
gelmem"I do not come"
gelemem"I cannot come"
geleceğim"I will come"
gelmişim"It seems that I came"
geliyorum"I am coming"
geldim"I came"
gelsem"if only I came"

Questions

The interrogative particle mi precedes predicative (type-I) endings (except for the 3rd person plural -ler), but follows the complete verb formed from a verbal, type-II ending:

Geliyor musunuz? "Are you coming?" (but: Geliyorlar mı? "Are they coming?")
Geldiniz mi? "Did you come?"

Optative and imperative moods

Usually, in the optative (istek), only the first-person forms are used, and these supply the lack of a first-person imperative (emir). In common practice then, there is one series of endings to express something wished for:

-(y)eyim, -(y)elim, , -(y)in, -sin.

(The longer second-person plural imperative ending -(y) iniz is generally used only in writing.)

Non-indicative verbs
Geleyim"Let me come"
Gelelim"Let us come"
Gel"Come (thou)"
Gelin"Come (you)"
Gelsin"Let [her/him/it] come"
Gelsinler"Let them come"

The defective verb i-

The ancient verb er- #Lewis [VIII,2] exists in Turkish in three bases:

The form iken given under #Adverbs from verbs is also descended from er-. Since no more bases are founded on the stem i-, this verb can be called defective. In particular, i- forms no negative or impotential stems; negation is achieved with the #Adverb of negation, değil, given earlier.

Verbs i- are often made into suffixes; the corresponding bases then are

where the y is used only after vowels.

The verb i- serves as a copula. When a copula is needed, but the appropriate base in i- does not exist, then the corresponding base in ol- is used; this stem otherwise means "become".

The verb i- is irregular in the way it is used in questions: the particle mi always precedes it:

Kuş idi or Kuştu "It was a bird";
Kuş muydu? "Was it a bird?"

Compound bases

The bases so far considered can be called "simple". A base in i- can be attached to another base, forming a compound base. One can then interpret the result by reading backwards. The following list is representative, not exhaustive:

By means of ise or -(y)se, a verb can be made conditional in the sense of being the hypothesis or protasis of a complex statement:

önemli bir şey yapıyorsunuz "You are doing something important";
Önemli bir şey yapıyorsanız, rahatsız etmeyelim "If you are doing something important, let us not cause disturbance."

The simple conditional can be used for remote conditions:

Bakmakla öğrenilse, köpekler kasap olurdu "If learning by looking were possible, dogs would be butchers."

Notes

  1. http://www.thexfiles-tr.net/senaryo5x07.htm
  2. E.E. Erguvanli 1984 The function of Word Order in Turkish Grammar. University of California Press. UCLA PhD Dissertation 1979
  3. Hoffman, B. (1994) Generating Context-Appropriate Word Orders in Turkish in Proceedings of the Seventh International Workshop on Natural Language Generation Pages 117-126 http://arxiv.org/abs/cmp-lg/9407017v1
  4. Slobin, D.I. and Bever, G.T. Children use Canonical Sentence Schemas: A Cross-linguistic Study of Word Order and Inflections. Cognition, 12:229-265, 1982
  5. The term "aorist" is often used in Turkish grammars for the habitual aspect. This is quite different from its use in Greek grammars, where it means perfective aspect: what is called "definite past" in Turkish.
  6. The imperfective aspect is often called "present", though it is not actually present tense
  7. The perfective aspect is often called "definite past", though it is not actually past tense

References

Grammars

Dictionaries

Other Grammars

External links

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