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Turkish grammar ( tr, Türkçe dil bilgisi), as described in this article, is the
grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...
of standard
Turkish Turkish may refer to: *a Turkic language spoken by the Turks * of or about Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities and mi ...
as spoken and written by educated people in the
Republic of Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
. Turkish is a highly
agglutinative language An agglutinative language is a type of synthetic language with morphology that primarily uses agglutination. Words may contain different morphemes to determine their meanings, but all of these morphemes (including stems and affixes) tend to remain ...
, in that much of the grammar is expressed by means of
suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...
es added to
noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
s and
verb A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...
s. It is very regular compared with many European languages. For example, ''evlerden'' "from the houses" can be analysed as ''ev'' "house", ''-ler'' (plural suffix), ''-den'' (
ablative case In grammar, the ablative case (pronounced ; sometimes abbreviated ) is a grammatical case for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives in the grammars of various languages; it is sometimes used to express motion away from something, among other uses. T ...
, meaning "from"); ''gidiyorum'' "I am going" as ''git'' "go", ''-iyor'' ( present continuous tense), ''-um'' (1st person singular = "I"). Another characteristic of Turkish is
vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is an Assimilation (linguistics), assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is t ...
. Most suffixes have two or four different forms, the choice between which depends on the
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
of the word's
root In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the sur ...
or the preceding suffix: for example, the ablative case of ''evler'' is ''evlerden'' "from the houses" but, the ablative case of ''başlar'' "heads" is ''başlardan'' "from the heads". Verbs have six
grammatical person In linguistics, grammatical person is the grammatical distinction between deictic references to participant(s) in an event; typically the distinction is between the speaker ( first person), the addressee ( second person), and others (third pers ...
s (three singular and three plural), various
voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production in ...
s (active and passive, reflexive, reciprocal, and causative), and a large number of
grammatical tense In grammar, tense is a grammatical category, category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their grammatical conjugation, conjugation patterns. The main tenses foun ...
s. Meanings such as "not", "be able", "should" and "if", which are expressed as separate words in most European languages, are usually expressed with verbal suffixes in Turkish. A characteristic of Turkish which is shared by neighboring languages such as
Bulgarian Bulgarian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Bulgaria * Bulgarians, a South Slavic ethnic group * Bulgarian language, a Slavic language * Bulgarian alphabet * A citizen of Bulgaria, see Demographics of Bulgaria * Bul ...
and
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
is that the perfect tense suffix (in Turkish ''-miş-'', ''-müş-'', ''-mış-'', or ''-muş-'') often has an inferential meaning, e.g. ''geliyormuşum'' "it would seem (they say) that I am coming". Verbs also have a number of
participial In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
forms, which Turkish makes much use of. Clauses which begin with "who" or "because" in English are generally translated by means of participial phrases in Turkish. In Turkish, verbs generally come at the end of the sentence or
clause In language, a clause is a constituent that comprises a semantic predicand (expressed or not) and a semantic predicate. A typical clause consists of a subject and a syntactic predicate, the latter typically a verb phrase composed of a verb with ...
;
adjective In linguistics, an adjective (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that generally grammatical modifier, modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Tra ...
s and
possessive A possessive or ktetic form (abbreviated or ; from la, possessivus; grc, κτητικός, translit=ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict owne ...
nouns come before the noun they describe; and meanings such as "behind", "for", "like/similar to" etc. are expressed as
postpositions Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
following the noun rather than prepositions before it.


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 Turkish vocabulary is the set of words within the Turkish language. The language widely uses agglutination and suffixes to form words from noun and verb stems. Besides native Turkic words, Turkish vocabulary is rich in loanwords from Arabic, Pers ...
treats the constructive suffixes. The vowels of suffixes undergo
vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is an Assimilation (linguistics), assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is t ...
. When a suffix is attached to a stem, the vowel in the suffix generally agrees in frontness or backness and in
roundedness In phonetics, vowel roundedness is the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. It is labialization of a vowel. When a ''rounded'' vowel is pronounced, the lips form a circular opening, and ''unrounded'' vowels are pron ...
with the last vowel in the stem or of the preceding suffix. Some suffixes show two-way vowel harmony between ''e'' and ''a'', for example the plural suffix ''-ler/-lar''. The ''e'' form is found after a syllable with ''i'', ''e'', ''ö'' or ''ü'' (e.g. ''evler'' "houses", ''günler'' "days"), and also after certain Arabic or French borrowings such as ''saatler'' "hours, clocks", ''kalpler'' "hearts". Other suffixes show four-way vowel harmony between ''i'', ''ı'', ''u'', ''ü'', for example the possessive ending ''-im/-ım/-um/-üm'' "my". These endings are found after syllables containing their own vowels or after ''e'', ''a'', ''o'', ''ö'' respectively (e.g. ''evim'' "my house", ''gözüm'' "my eye", etc.) A Turkish suffix can be called ''
enclitic In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a wo ...
'' 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 words (mostly naming professions or different sexes of livestock). The English third-person singular pronouns ''she'', ''he'', and ''it'' all correspond to a single Turkish pronoun, ''o''. Many given names in Turkish are also gender-neutral, so it is entirely possible to describe someone in the Turkish language without their gender identity being made known.


Person

Turkish has a strong
T–V distinction The T–V distinction is the contextual use of different pronouns that exists in some languages and serves to convey formality or familiarity. Its name comes from the Latin pronouns '' tu'' and '' vos''. The distinction takes a number of forms ...
, using the second-person plural as the formal form, as in French and many other languages. Turkish also uses various
honorific An honorific is a title that conveys esteem, courtesy, or respect for position or rank when used in addressing or referring to a person. Sometimes, the term "honorific" is used in a more specific sense to refer to an honorary academic title. It ...
s.


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 The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...
second-person ''siz'' is used almost exclusively. In very formal situations,
double plural A double plural is a plural form to which an extra suffix has been added, mainly because the original plural suffix (or other variation) had become unproductive and therefore irregular. So the form as a whole was no longer seen as a plural, an i ...
second-person ''sizler'' may 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. Bey (Mr.), Hanım (Ms.), Öğretmen (teacher)). 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 first names, for foreigners, names are preceded by ''Bay'' (Mr.) or ''Bayan'' (Ms.): Bay oxMulder, Bayan anaScully (cf. Fox ulderBey, Dana
cully Cully may refer to: Places * Cully, Calvados, a former commune in the Allier department, France *Cully, Switzerland, a municipality in the canton of Vaud * Cully, Portland, Oregon, United States, a neighborhood in northeast Portland People Given ...
Hanım, if these names were Turkish).


Turkish terminology

In the Turkish terms for the constructive and inflectional endings, three roots are involved: *''ek'' "supplement, affix" (notably Turkish has no prefixes) *''yap-'' "make" *''çek-'' "pull, draw" 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: *''yapım'' "construction"; *''çekim'' " pull or draw" (or a "take" in cinema). 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'': *''yapım eki'' "structure-suffix"; *''çekim eki'' "inflection-suffix". The inflectional suffix ''-ler'' comes before the ''-i'' to form the plural, so ''yapım ekleri, çekim ekleri''. Many words in Turkish— particularly many grammatical terms— are
neologisms A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...
invented to replace earlier words borrowed from Arabic or Persian, which have largely been successful at permanently superseding the previously used foreign terms. (See the main article on Turkish language#Language reform and modern Turkish, Turkish language.) In some cases, the foreign term continues to be in use alongside the neologism.


Parts of speech

There are nine parts of speech (''söz türleri'' "word-kinds") in Turkish. #
noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
(''isim'' or ''ad'' "name"); #
pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not co ...
(''zamir'' "inner being", or ''adıl'' from ''ad''); #
adjective In linguistics, an adjective (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that generally grammatical modifier, modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Tra ...
(''sıfat'' "role, quality", or ''önad'' "front-noun"); #
verb A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...
(''fiil'' "act, deed", or ''eylem'' "action" from ''eyle-'' "make, do"); #
adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering ...
(''zarf'' "envelope", or ''belirteç'' from ''belir-'' "determine"); #
postposition Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
(''ilgeç'' from ''ilgi'' "interest, relation"); #
conjunction Conjunction may refer to: * Conjunction (grammar), a part of speech * Logical conjunction, a mathematical operator ** Conjunction introduction, a rule of inference of propositional logic * Conjunction (astronomy), in which two astronomical bodies ...
(''bağlaç'' from ''bağ'' "bond"); #
particle In the Outline of physical science, physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small wikt:local, localized physical body, object which can be described by several physical property, physical or chemical property, chemical ...
(''edat'', or ''ilgeç''); #
interjection An interjection is a word or expression that occurs as an utterance on its own and expresses a spontaneous feeling or reaction. It is a diverse category, encompassing many different parts of speech, such as exclamations ''(ouch!'', ''wow!''), curse ...
(''nidâ'' bsolete 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: *
verbal noun A verbal noun or gerundial noun is a verb form that functions as a noun. An example of a verbal noun in English grammar, English is 'sacking' as in the sentence "The sacking of the city was an epochal event" (''sacking'' is a noun formed from the ...
(''isim-fiil''); * verbal adjective (''sıfat-fiil'') or
participle In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
(''ortaç''); * verbal adverb (''zarf-fiil''; called a ''gerund'' by Lewis (1967)). 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. In Turkish, an ascriptive clause can be composed of a common noun standing alone as the Predicative, both the Subject and the Predicator being implicit and assumed from the situation. Example: :''köpek'' – "dog" :''Köpek.'' – "It is a dog." This means that both a noun and a verb can alone constitute an affirmative clause in Turkish, which is not the case in English. There are two standards for listing verbs in dictionaries. Most dictionaries follow the tradition of spelling out the infinitive form of the verb as the
headword In morphology and lexicography, a lemma (plural ''lemmas'' or ''lemmata'') is the canonical form, dictionary form, or citation form of a set of word forms. In English, for example, ''break'', ''breaks'', ''broke'', ''broken'' and ''breaking'' a ...
of the entry, but others such as the Redhouse Turkish-English Dictionary are more technical and spell out the stem of the verb instead, that is, they spell out a string of letters that is useful for producing all other verb forms through morphological rules. Similar to the latter, this article follows the stem-as-citeword standard. * Infinitive: ''koşmak'' ("to run") * Stem: ''koş-'' ("run") In Turkish, the verbal stem is also the second-person singular imperative form. Example: :''koş-'' (stem meaning "run") :''Koş!'' ("Run!") Many verbs are formed from nouns by addition of ''-le''. For example: :''köpek'' – "dog" :''köpekle'' – "dog paddle" (in any of several ways) The
aorist Aorist (; abbreviated ) verb forms usually express perfective aspect and refer to past events, similar to a preterite. Ancient Greek grammar had the aorist form, and the grammars of other Indo-European languages and languages influenced by the I ...
tense of a verb is formed by adding ''-(i/e)r''. The plural of a noun is formed by suffixing ''-ler''. Hence, the suffix ''-ler'' can indicate either a plural noun or a finite verb: :''Köpek'' + ''ler'' – "(They are) dogs." :''Köpekle'' + ''r'' – "S/he dog paddles." Most adjectives can be treated as nouns or pronouns. For example, ''genç'' can mean "young", "young person", or "the young person being 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 Comparison or comparing is the act of evaluating two or more things by determining the relevant, comparable characteristics of each thing, and then determining which characteristics of each are similar to the other, which are different, and t ...
of adjectives is not done by inflecting adjectives or adverbs, but by other means (described
below Below may refer to: *Earth *Ground (disambiguation) *Soil *Floor *Bottom (disambiguation) Bottom may refer to: Anatomy and sex * Bottom (BDSM), the partner in a BDSM who takes the passive, receiving, or obedient role, to that of the top or ...
). Adjectives can serve as adverbs, sometimes by means of repetition: :''yavaş'' – "slow" :''yavaş yavaş'' – "slowly"


Word order

A general rule of Turkish
word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...
is that the modifier precedes the modified: *adjective (used attributively) precedes noun; *adverb precedes verb; *object of postposition precedes postposition. Although the most common order of Turkish transitive sentences is
subject–object–verb Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to: Philosophy *'' Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing **Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective con ...
(SOV), all six permutations are valid (the subject and object are distinguished by case suffixes). The word order serves to express the
theme Theme or themes may refer to: * Theme (arts), the unifying subject or idea of the type of visual work * Theme (Byzantine district), an administrative district in the Byzantine Empire governed by a Strategos * Theme (computing), a custom graphical ...
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. The following sentences illustrate how subject–object–verb order changes the meaning. 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. When a sentence has multiple informational components, the stressed component is positioned just before the verb:


Morpheme order

The order of
morphemes A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone a ...
in Turkish is often opposite to English: The above example is also illustrative of the productive nature of Turkish suffixes in creating new verbs, nouns, etc. Note that the word ''Avrupalılaştıramadık'' can be a verb, a participle or a noun; in this parse, it is a participle, or verbal adjective, that is used as a noun. The longest published word in Turkish, ''muvaffakiyetsizleştiricileştiriveremeyebileceklerimizdenmişsinizcesine'', means "as if you are one of those that we cannot easily convert into an unsuccessful-person-maker" (i.e., someone who un-educates people to make them unsuccessful).


Inflectional suffixes

: ''For case endings, see '' The plural suffix (''çoğul eki'') can be used with nouns and with third-person verbs: * ''-ler'' (front vowel harmony: ''e'', ''i'', ''ö'', ''ü'') * ''-lar'' (back vowel harmony: ''a'', ''ı'', ''o'', ''u'') 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: : Several series of endings show distinctions of
person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, ...
(''kişi''); they are given here, along with the personal pronouns for comparison: : 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 the ''possessor'' of the object named by the noun to which the suffix is attached; it also indicates a subject for a participle. (See .) A "predicative" ending can assign a person to a noun, thus creating a complete sentence: :''insan'' "human" → ''İnsanım.'' "I am a human." See also and
Turkish copula The Turkish copula is one of the more distinct features of Turkish grammar. In Turkish, copulas are called ''ek-eylem'' () or ''ek-fiil'' () (' suffix-verb'). Turkish is a highly agglutinative language and copulas are rendered as suffixes, al ...
. 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''. : The first syllable of the present/imperfective tense suffix (''-iyor'') exhibits vowel harmony while the second is invariable. When suffixed to a stem ending in a vowel, that vowel is elided: ''ye-'' + ''-iyor'' → ''yiyor''. The aorist negative and impotential forms 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 (but is retained when the interrogative particle ''mi'' intervenes; see below). (Aorist negative first-person singular: ''-mem''; but: aorist impotential third-person plural: ''-(y)emezler''.) See also ''Negation and potential in verb-stems'' under below. Some third-person verbs also function as 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: : The interrogative particle (''soru eki'') is not written as a suffix, but phonetically it is enclitic; in particular, it exhibits vowel harmony: * ''mi'' (front-unrounded vowel harmony: ''i'', after ''e'' and ''i'') * ''mı'' (back-unrounded vowel harmony: ''ı'', after ''a'' and ''ı'') * ''mu'' (back-rounded vowel harmony: ''u'', after ''o'' and ''u'') * ''mü'' (front-rounded vowel harmony: ''ü'', after ''ö'' and ''ü'')


Nouns


Inflection

A Turkish noun has no
gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...
. The dictionary-form of a noun can take up to four (kinds of) inflectional suffixes, generally in the following order: # plural suffix; # suffix of
possession Possession may refer to: Law * Dependent territory, an area of land over which another country exercises sovereignty, but which does not have the full right of participation in that country's governance * Drug possession, a crime * Ownership * ...
(''iyelik eki'' from ''iye'' "owner"); #
case Case or CASE may refer to: Containers * Case (goods), a package of related merchandise * Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component * Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books * Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to c ...
-ending; #
personal Personal may refer to: Aspects of persons' respective individualities * Privacy * Personality * Personal, personal advertisement, variety of classified advertisement used to find romance or friendship Companies * Personal, Inc., a Washington, ...
suffix (''kişi eki'' from ''kişi'' "person"). Through its presence or absence, the plural ending shows distinctions of
number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...
.


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: : The plural ending also allows a family (living in one house) to be designated by a single member: : 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 A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, ...
(and number) of the ''possessor'' of what is named by the noun: 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. The plural ending will not be attached twice to the same word; therefore ambiguity is possible: : Ambiguity can be resolved with #Pronouns.


Case

The Turkish language is normally described as having six cases, whose names in English are borrowed from
Latin grammar Latin is a heavily inflected languages, inflected language with largely free word order. Nouns are inflected for grammatical number, number and grammatical case, case; pronouns and adjectives (including participles) are inflected for number, cas ...
. The case endings (''durum ekleri'' 'ending condition') are regular and subject to vowel harmony. The postposition ''ile'' is often absorbed onto the noun as ''-(y)le'', and some authors analyse this as an
instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...
and
comitative In grammar, the comitative case (; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case that denotes accompaniment. In English, the preposition "with", in the sense of "in company with" or "together with", plays a substantially similar role (other uses of "with", l ...
case. As it differs from the other case markers in several ways, it may be considered as an "inflectional marker" but not a case marker. In particular, unlike the other case endings, ''-(y)le'' is never accentuated. Also, when combined with the personal pronouns, the demonstratives, or the interrogative ''kim'', they are used in the genitive, ''e.g.'', ''kiminle'' 'with whom', not ''*kimle''. 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, or to a compound noun where the second word is already suffixed, then the case ending is preceded by ''n'' (and the parenthetical ''y'' is not used). For instance: "Türk yemeklerini seviyorum.", "I love Turkish food."


= Absolute case

= The absolute case combines the uses of the
nominative In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...
,
vocative In grammar, the vocative Grammatical case, case (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed, or occasionally for the noun modifiers ...
, and (in part)
accusative The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘the ...
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: :


= Dative case

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


= Locative case

= The locative case tells ''where'', hence corresponds to the English prepositions "at", "on", and "in" (when it does not mean "into"). : ''ev'' "house" → ''evde'' "at home" :


= Ablative case

= The ablative case tells ''whence'', that is, the place ''from which'' (or through which), hence: *material ''out of which'' something is made; *a cause ''by which'' something is effected; *that ''to which'' other things are being ''compared'' (see #Adjectives below).


= Genitive case

= 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''): : (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''): : If one noun names a material, the other noun need not take an ending: : The genitive case can also be used for the subject of some
complement A complement is something that completes something else. Complement may refer specifically to: The arts * Complement (music), an interval that, when added to another, spans an octave ** Aggregate complementation, the separation of pitch-class ...
or adjunct clauses: * Annemizin uzak bir semtte oturmasına rağmen, her gün ona uğruyoruz. // Although our mother lives in a remote neighborhood, we visit her every day." * Başkanın vermesi gerekiyor. // The president needs to give it. * Tuğçe bizim Ankara'ya gitmemizi istedi. // Tuğçe wanted us to go to Ankara. * Ben Ali'nin camı kırdığı zamanı biliyordum. // I knew when Ali broke the glass.


= Instrumental case

= The instrumental case functions as both an instrumental and a
comitative In grammar, the comitative case (; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case that denotes accompaniment. In English, the preposition "with", in the sense of "in company with" or "together with", plays a substantially similar role (other uses of "with", l ...
. :


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. Examples : ''dünya'' "world" → ''Dünyayız.'' "We are the world." : ''çocuk'' "child" → ''Çocuklarsınız.'' "You are the children" In the third person, no ending is required. However, the ending ''-dir'' can be used; it is said to be the remnant of a verb ''turur'' "S/he stands". Again in the third person, the plural suffix may be used: : Several suffixes can be combined:


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 In linguistics, a gerund ( abbreviated ) is any of various nonfinite verb forms in various languages; most often, but not exclusively, one that functions as a noun. In English, it has the properties of both verb and noun, such as being modifiable ...
. :''bekle'' "wait" → ''bekleme'' "waiting": ''bekleme odası'' "waiting room" The verbal noun can take a suffix of possession and any case-ending: The dative form of a Turkish gerund can correspond precisely to an English infinitive with ''to'': The suffix ''-iş'' can also be used to create verbal nouns: : 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'' " naccepting"); ''reddet-'' "reject" (''ret'' " rejecting"); ''ziyaret et-'' "visit" (''ziyaret'' " visiting"). Considered as units, these are transitive verbs; but the nouns in them can also, 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": 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: A free translation is:
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_Auxiliary_verbs

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Auxiliary verbs

Certain verbs in Turkish are used to enhance the meaning of other verbs, or to agglutinative language">agglutinate verbs from nouns. These verbs are called auxiliary verbs. A concise list follows: Verbs that are used with nouns to agglutinate new verbs * ''wikt:etmek, etmek'' (to do) * ''wikt:olmak, olmak'' (to be) * ''wikt:kılmak, kılmak'' (to make) * '' eylemek'' (to make) 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 ("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 Verbs that are used with other verbs to enhance the meaning: * ''-(i)vermek'' (implies urgency) * ''-(e)bilmek'' (implies ability) * ''-(e)durmak'' (implies continuity) * ''-(e)gelmek'' (implies repetition) * ''-(a)kalmak'' (implies continuity) * ''-(e)yazmak'' (implies a close escape) Examples * ''düş-'' (fall) → ''düşeyazdım'' (I almost fell) * ''git-'' (go) → ''gidiverdim'' (I just went) * ''yavaşla-'' (slow down) → ''yavaşlayabilirim'' (I can slow down) * ''yaz-'' (write) → ''yazaduruyorlar'' (they keep on writing) * ''söylen-'' (be told) → ''söylenegelir'' (keeps being told)


Adjectives

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


Descriptive adjectives

Most adjectives in the dictionary are descriptive. The two most fundamental descriptive adjectives are: * ''var'' ("existing") * ''yok'' ("not existing") These are used only predicatively: * with the sense of the English "There is" and "There is not": *in the construction that supplies the lack of a verb "have": :(This is a proverbial expression; the more usual order would make the saying, ''Balcının bal tası var, oduncunun baltası var'').


Indefinite adjectives

The cardinal number ''bir'' ("one") can be used as an indefinite
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. Word order can make a 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: Compare: *''Bir şey görüyorum.'' – "I see something." *''Hiçbir şey görmüyorum.'' – "I don't see anything."


Comparison

In a positive comparison, the object takes the ablative case; the adverb ''daha'' ("more") is optional, unless the object is left out. In a negative comparison, the adverb ''az'' ("less") is needed; the object still takes the ablative; ''daha'' can still be used as well. The superlative degree is expressed by the adverb ''en'' ("most").


Participles

It is noted under #Parts of speech that Turkish participles (''sıfat-fiiller'') can be classified as *personal, if they take a suffix of possession; *impersonal, if they do not. 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 connection 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


Present

that is, "No legal process has begun concerning the AKP members who pulled out guns and fired them in the air"; for ''-ip'' see #Adverbs below. that is, "last week";


Future


Past/present

A personal participle can be construed as a noun and used in parallel with verbal nouns: 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 wnneeds." 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-'': In other words:
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.


Intensification

Turkish adjectives can be intensified with ''intensifying'' ( pekiştirme) prefixes.Turkish Vocabulary Booster, Word Formation in Turkish, by Halit Demir, 15 September 2020, 3. "Intensifying prefixes for adjectives" If the adjective begins with a consonant the prefix is the consonant + the following vowel + m, p, r, or s. p operates as the default, and is the most common form. Forms in r and m are rare. There is no single rule that governs the choice of the final consonant. This choice tends to minimize featural similarity with consonants in the base adjective, in particular, the first and second consonants: * siyah ("black") → simsiyah ("pitch black") * güzel ("pretty") → güpgüzel ("very pretty") * temiz ("clean") → tertemiz ("clean as a pin") * katı ("hard") → kaskatı ("hard as a rock") If the adjective begins with a vowel, the prefix consists of this vowel + p: * uzun ("long") → upuzun ("very long") The vowel is sometimes also added after the consonant: * sağlam ("healthy") → sapasağlam ("very healthy") (sapsağlam also exists) * yalnız ("alone") → yapayalnız ("all alone") (yapyalnız also exists) * gündüz ("daytime") → güpegündüz ("") (güpgündüz also exists) * çevre ("") → çepeçevre ("") (çepçevre also exists) * tıp ("medical") → tıpatıp ("exactly") There are also some irregular suffixes: * çıplak ("naked") → çırılçıplak ("stark naked") (çırçıplak and çırçıplak also exist) * sıklam ("") → sırılsıklam ("") (sırsıklam also exists) * karışık ("complex") → karmakarışık ("totally complex") * dağınık ("untidy") → darmadağınık ("very untidy") (dapdağınık and dasdağınık also exist) * renk ("colored") → rengârenk ("multicolored") * deli ("mad") → zırdeli ("raving mad") * parça ("piece") → paramparça ("in pieces") Some adjectives have more than one intensified form: * düz ("flat"): düpdüz (24.1%), dümdüz (78.1%) ("very flat", 2 forms) (the irregular düpedüz also exists) * yaş ("fresh"): yapyaş (44.8%), yamyaş (58.6%) ("very fresh", 2 forms) * sefil ("miserable"): sepsefil (24.1%), semsefil (6.8%), sersefil (66.6%) ("very miserable", 3 forms) * geniş ("large"): gepgeniş (77%), gemgeniş (9.15%), gesgeniş (6.8%), gergeniş (5.7%) ("very large", 4 forms) * topaç (""): toptopaç (47.15%), tomtopaç (5.75%), tostopaç (33.3%), tortopaç (3.4%) ("very ", 4 forms) This process is also called emphatic reduplication. It is only applied to particular common adjectives (between 100 and 215 depending on sourcesÖzçelik, S . (2012). m, p, r, s Ünsüzleriyle Yapılan Pekiştirme ve Kuralları Üzerine . Türk Dili Araştırmaları Yıllığı – Belleten, 60 (2), 29–42 . Retrieved from https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/belleten/issue/32746/363486), and not to new adjectives which enter Turkish. However, native speakers are able to produce novel forms when asked to do so.Turkish Emphatic Reduplication: Balancing Productive and Lexicalized Forms
Rajdip Dhillon,
Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...


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'' " osmilingly" (said to somebody departing); ''Güle güle kullanın'' "Use tsmilingly" (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: From ''ol-'' "be, become", ''olarak'' forms adverbial phrases corresponding to those in English with "as": ''ciddi olarak'' "seriously" (''ciddi'' "serious"). The ending ''-meden'' on a verb-stem looks like the ablative gerund, but it is not (Lewis I,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." 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 leapt." 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
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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. All personal pronouns aside from ''onlar'' form their instrumental with the genitive form. 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: The pronoun ''o'' is also one of the demonstrative pronouns: *''o'' "that"; *''bu'' "this"; *''şu'' "this or that" (thing pointed to). The latter two are declined like ''o'' (that is, treated as if they were ''bun'' and ''şun'', and formed to the instrumental with the genitive). The interrogative pronouns (and adjectives) are: *''kim'' "who"; *''ne'' "what"; *''hangi'' "which"; *''kaç'' "how many" or "how much". These appear in embedded questions but do not serve as true relative pronouns: :''Buzdolabında kaç tane 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


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 connection with the verb ''köpekle-''. Many verbs are formed from nouns or adjectives with ''-le'': :


Voice

A verbal root, or a verb-stem in ''-le'', can be lengthened with certain extensions. If present, they appear in the following order, and they indicate distinctions of
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: : These endings might seem to be ''inflectional'' in the sense of the 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''. :


Negation and potential in verb-stems

A dictionary-stem is positive; it can be made: *negative, by addition of ''-me''; *impotential, by addition of ''-e'' and then ''-me''. 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 Lewis may refer to: Names * Lewis (given name), including a list of people with the given name * Lewis (surname), including a list of people with the surname Music * Lewis (musician), Canadian singer * "Lewis (Mistreated)", a song by Radiohead ...
III,55 So far then, there are six kinds of stems: : Such stems are not used for aorist forms, which have their own peculiar means of forming negatives and impotentials. Note that ''-ebil'' is one of several verbs that can be compounded to enhance meaning. See
Auxiliary verbs An auxiliary verb (abbreviated ) is a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it occurs, so as to express tense, aspect, modality, voice, emphasis, etc. Auxiliary verbs usually accompany an infinitive verb or a p ...
.


Bases of verbs

The characteristics with which verb-bases are formed from stems are given under . Note again that aorist verbs have their own peculiar negative and impotential forms. The progressive base in ''-mekte'' is discussed under . 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 III,30. The present base is derived from the ancient verb ''yorı-'' "go, walk" #Lewis III,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 uncertainty 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: :


Questions

The interrogative
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''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: :


The defective verb ''i-''

The ancient verb ''er-'' #Lewis III,2survives in Turkish in three bases: *''imiş'', *''idi'', *''ise''. 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. The ''i-'' bases are often turned into base-forming suffixes without change in meaning; the corresponding suffixes are *''-(y)miş'', *''-(y)di'', *''-(y)se'', where the ''y'' is used only after vowels. For example, ''Hasta imiş'' and ''Hastaymış'' both mean, "Apparently/Reportedly, he/she/it is ill". 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; when used otherwise this stem 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 in terms of English verb forms by reading backwards. The following list is representative, not exhaustive: *Past tenses: **continuous past: ''Geliyordum'' "I was coming"; **aorist past: ''Gelirdim'' "I used to come"; **future past: ''Gelecektim'' "I was going to come"; **pluperfect: ''Gelmiştim'' "I had come"; **necessitative past: ''Gelmeliydim'' "I had to come"; **conditional past: ''Gelseydim'' "If only I had come." *Inferential tenses: **continuous inferential: ''Geliyormuşum'' "It seems (they say) I am coming"; **future inferential: ''Gelecekmişim'' "It seems I shall come"; **aorist inferential: ''Gelirmişim'' "It seems I come"; **necessitative inferential: ''Gelmeliymişim'' "They say I must come." 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


References


Grammars

* "A classic, still used to teach Turkish grammar in many universities." * "Turkish lessons with Turkish-English explanation for foreigners." * "A classic, still used to teach Turkish grammar in many universities." * "The most recent comprehensive grammar in English." * * Second edition. Structural differences between the two editions are not named in the second, but appear to be as follows: IV,4 "''-çe''", VI,7 "Arithmetical terms", XI,16 "''-diğinde''", and XII,25 "''tâ''" are new, while XV,1 "Nominal sentences and verbal sentences" in the first edition was dropped. * "Semantic and syntactic properties of words: subjects, examples, questions, answers with explanation (language ability for the university entrance examinations, 2)." * "The Turkish language, language, and expression." * * *Gerjan van Schaaik (2020). ''The Oxford Turkish Grammar''. Oxford: Oxford University Press.


Dictionaries

* "Etymological Dictionary of the Turkish Language." Expanded and revised second edition. * New edition revised and updated by Resuhi Akdikmen. *''Redhouse Yeni Türkçe-İngilizce Sözlük. New Redhouse Turkish-English Dictionary.'' Redhouse Yayınevi, İstanbul, 1968 (12th ed., 1991). *''Redhouse Büyük Elsözlüğü İngilizce-Türkçe, Türkçe-İngilizce. The Larger Redhouse Portable Dictionary English-Turkish, Turkish-English.'' Redhouse Yayınevi, İstanbul 1997 (9th printing, 1998). *Türk Dil Kurumu urkish Language Foundation ''Türkçe Sözlük'', expanded 7th edition, 1983.


Other Grammars

*Aksan, Doğan (Hazırlayan) (1983), Sözcük Türleri, TDK, Ankara, 2. Baskı, 288 s. *Aksan, Doğan (1978), Türkiye Türkçesinde Gelişmeli Sesbilim, (Hazırlayanlar: Atabay, N-Özel, S., Çam, A.-Pirali, N.), TDK, Ankara. *Atabay, Neşe-Özel, Sevgi-Çam, Ayfer (1981), Türkiye Türkçesinin Sözdizimi, TDK, Ankara, 131 s. (2003), Papatya Yayınları. *Atalay, Besim (Haz.), (Bergamalı Kadri) (1946), Müyessiretü’l-Ulûm, İbrahim Horoz Basımevi, İstanbul. *Banguoğlu, Tahsin (1940), Ana Hatları ile Türk Grameri, İstanbul. *Banguoğlu, Tahsin (1959), Türk Grameri I: Sesbilgisi, TDK, Ankara, 306 s. *Banguoğlu, Tahsin (1986), Türkçenin Grameri, TDK, Ankara, 2. Baskı, 628 s. *Bilgegil, Kaya (1984), Türkçe Dilbilgisi, Dergâh Yayınları, İstanbul *Bozkurt, Fuat (1995), Türkiye Türkçesi, Cem Yayınevi, İstanbul, 552 s. *Burdurlu, İbrahim Zeki (1982), Uygulamalı Cümle Çözümlemeleri, İstanbul. *Delice, H. İbrahim, (2003), Türçe Sözdizimi, Kitabevi, İstanbul, 248s. *Demiray, Kemal (1964), Türkçe Dilbilgisi, Ankara. *Demircan, Ömer (1996), Türkçenin Sesdizimi, Der Yayınları, İstanbul, X+196 s, (2002) Der Yayınları. *Demircan, Ömer (1979), Türkiye Türkçesinin Ses Düzeni Türkiye Türkçesinde Sesler, Ankara *Demircan (1977), Ömer, Türkiye Türkiye Türkçesinde Kök-Ek Bileşmeleri, TDK, Ankara *Deny, Jean (1992), Grammaire de la Langue Turque, Dialecte Osmanli, Paris, 1920, 1216 s. *Develi, Hayati (2001), Osmanlı Türkçesi Kılavuzu 1–2, Kitabevi. *Deny, Jean (1941), Türk Dili Grameri, (Osmanlı Lehçesi), Çev.: Elöve, A.U., İstanbul *Deny, Jean (1995), Türk Dili Gramerinin Temel Kuralları, (Çeviren: Oytun ŞAHiN), TDK, Ankara, XII+164 s. *Dilmen, İbrahim Necmi (1930), Türkçe Gramer, İstanbul, 2 cilt. *Dizdaroglu, Hikmet (1976), Tümcebilgisi, TDK, Ankara, 522+2 s.(doğru-yanlış cetveli). *Dizdaroglu, Hikmet (1988), Türkçede Sözcük Yapma Yolları, Ankara, 1962. *Eckmann, János, Çağatayca El Kitabı, (Çeviren: Günay Karaağaç), İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Yay., İstanbul, XVI+288 s. *Ediskun, Haydar (1992), Türk Dilbilgisi, Remzi Kitabevi, İstanbul, 4. Baskı, 407 s. *Elöve, Ali Ulvi (Çeviren), (Jean Deny) (1941), Türk Dili Grameri (Osmanlı Lehçesi), TDK, İstanbul, XXII+1142+İlâve Doğru-Yanlış Cetveli)+XLI+A-G (İçindekiler). *Emecan, Neşe (1998), 1960'tan Günümüze Türkçe, İstanbul. *Emre, Ahmed Cevat (1945), Türk Dilbilgisi, TDK, İstanbul, XIX+613 s. *Ergin, Muharrem (1987), Osmanlıca Dersleri, Boğaziçi Yayınları, İstanbul, 9. Baskı, VIII+124+236+16 s. *Ergin, Muharrem (1985), Türk Dil Bilgisi, Boğaziçi Yayınları, İstanbul, 5. Baskı, XXVIII+407 s. *Gabain, Annamarie (1988), Eski Türkçenin Grameri, (Çeviren: Mehmet Akalın), TDK, Ankara, XXIII+313 s. *Gencan, Tahir Nejat (1966), Dilbilgisi, TDK, İstanbul, XV+412 s, (2001), Ayraç Yayınları . *Göğüş, Beşir (1969), Faydalı Dilbilgisi, I-II-II, İstanbul *Göknel, Yüksel (1974), Modern Türkçe Dilbilgisi, İzmir *Grönbech, K. (1995), Türkçenin Yapısı, (Çeviren: Mehmet Akalın), TDK, Ankara, 148 s. *Hacıeminoğlu, M. Necmettin (1984), Türk Dilinde Edatlar, Milli Eğitim Bak., İstanbul, 3. Baskı, VIII+335+1 s. *Hacıeminoğlu, Necmettin (1991), Türk Dilinde Yapı Bakımından Fiiller (En Eski Türkçeden Çağdaş Türk Şivelerine Kadar), Kültür Bak., Ankara, 279 s. *Hatiboğlu, Vecihe (1981), Türk Dilinde İkileme, TDK, Ankara, 2. Baskı, 120 s. *Hatiboğlu, Vecihe (1981), Türkçenin Ekleri, TDK, Ankara *Hatipoğlu, Vecihe (1972), Türkçenin Sözdizimi, Ankara *Karahan, Leyla (1991), Türkçede Söz Dizimi, Akçağ Yayınları, Ankara. *Karaağaç, Günay (2003), Çağatayca El Kitabı, Akçağ Yayınları. *Koç, Nurettin (1996), Yeni Dilbilgisi, İstanbul. *Kononov, A. N (1956)., Grammatika Sovremennogo Turetskogo Literaturnogo Yazıka, Akademiya Nauk SSSR Institut Vostokovedeniya, Moskva-Leningrad, 569 s.(Tıpıkbasım (2001), Multilingual, İstanbul) *Korkmaz, Zeynep (1994), Türkçede Eklerin Kullanılış Şekilleri ve Ek Kalıplaşması Olayları, TDK, Ankara, Üçüncü baskı, X+92 s. *Kornfilt, J. (1997), Turkish, London:Routledge. *Kutluk, İbrahim (1976), Sözcük Türleri I, (D. Aksan-N.Atabay-S.Özel ile), Ankara *Kükey, Mazhar (1975), Türkçenin Sözdizimi, Ankara *Lees, Robert B. (1961), The Phonology of Modern Standard Turkish, Indiana University, Bloomington, Mouton and Co. The Hague, Netherlands, VII+76 s. *Lewis, G.L. (1967), Turkish Language, Oxford University Press. *Mungan, Güler (2002), Türkçede Fiillerden Türetilmiş İsimlerin Morfolojik ve Semantik Yönden İncelenmesi, Simurg Yayınları. *Nash, Rose (1973), Turkish Intonation, Mouton. *Özden, Ragıp Hulusi (1938), Tarihsel Bakımdan Öztürkçe ve Yabancı Sözcüklerin Fonetik Ayraçlaır I, İstanbul, 21 s. *Özel, Sevgi (1976), Sözcük Türleri II, (D. Aksan-N.Atabay ile), Ankara. *Özel, Sevgi (1977), Türkiye Türkçesinde Sözcük Türetme ve Birleştirme, Ankara. *Selen, Nevin (1979), Söyleyiş Sesbilimi, Akustik Sesbilimi ve Türkiye Türkçesi, Türk Dil Kurumu Yayınları, Ankara. *Swift, Llyod B. (1963), A Reference Grammar of Modern Turkish, Indiana University, Bloomington, Mouton and Co. The Hague, Netherlands, 267 s.+4 Analyses (Tables). *Şimşek, Rasim (1987), Örneklerle Türkçe Sözdizimi, Trabzon. *Tansu, Muzaffer (1941), Türk Dilinin Entonasyonu: Tecrübi Etüd, Ankara. *Tansu, Muzaffer (1963), Durgun Genel Sesbilgisi ve Türkçe, Ankara. *Tekin, Talat (1988), Orhun Yazıtları, TDK, Ankara, XIV+200+23+4 s.(Yazıtların Kopyası) *Tekin, Talat (1994), Türkoloji Eleştirileri, Doruk Yayınları, Ankara. *Tekin, Talat (1995), Türk Dillerinde Birincil Uzun Ünlüler, Kültür Bak. Simurg, Ankara, 192 s. *Timurtaş, Faruk K. (1987), Osmanlı Türkçesi Giriş I (Eski Yazı—Gramer—Aruz—Metinler), Umur Reklamcılık ve Matbaacılık, İstanbul, 9. Baskı, XVI+232+176 s. *Timurtaş, Faruk K., Osmanlı Türkçesi Grameri III (Eski Yazı ve İmlâ—Arapça—Farsça—Eski Anadolu Türkçesi), Umur Reklamcılık ve Matbaacılık, İstanbul, 3. Baskı, XV+469 s. *Timurtaş, Faruk K. (1983), Osmanlı Türkçesi Grameri III, (5. Baskı), Umur Reklâmcılık, İstanbul *Timurtaş, Faruk Kadri (1994), Eski Türkiye Türkçesi XV. Yüzyıl (Gramer-Metin-Sözlük), Enderun Kitabevi, İstanbul. *Şahin, Hatice (2003), Eski Anadolu Türkçesi, Akçağ Yayınları. *Underhill, R. (1976), Turkish Grammar, Mass: The MIT Press.


External links

* * {{Language grammars