Transformational generative turkish grammar yuksel goknel 2010 signed

TRANSFORMATIONAL GENERATIVE TURKISH GRAMMAR

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TURKISH GRAMMAR
FOREWORD
The Turkish Grammar book that you have just started reading is quite different
from the grammar books that you read in schools. This kind of Grammar is known as
traditional grammar. The main difference of a traditional grammar and that of a
transformational one is that the first one describes a natural language as a static
object, but the second one describes both the parts of the language engine and how
it runs. This is like learning about a motionless car. There is something lacking in this
description. It is the dynamics of the parts of a car that runs a hundred and twenty
kilometers an hour.
Traditional grammars describe only the physical appearance of a language; they
do not mind what goes on behind the curtain. The mind of a human being works like
the engine of a sports car. It arranges and chooses words matching one another,
transforms simple sentence units to use in different parts of sentences, and recollects
morphemes and phonemes to be produced by the human speech organs. All these
activities are simultaneously carried out by the human mind.
Another point that the traditional grammarians generally miss is that they write the
grammar of a certain language to teach it to those who have been learning it from the
time when they were born up to the time when they discover something called
grammar. This is like teaching a language to professional speakers.
Then, what is the use of a grammar? I believe most people were acquainted with
it when they started learning a foreign language. Therefore, a grammar written for
those who are trying to learn a second language is very useful both in teaching and
learning a second language.
I started teaching English as a second language in 1952, a long time ago. Years
passed and one day I found myself as a postgraduate Fulbright student at the
University of Texas at Austin in 1960. Although I studied there for only a short period,
I learnt enough from Prof. Archibald A. Hill and Dr. De Camp to stimulate me to learn
more about Linguistics.
After I came back to Turkey, it was difficult to find books on linguistics in
booksellers in Istanbul. Thanks to The American Library in Istanbul, I was able to
borrow the books that attracted my attention.
In those books, I discovered Noam Chomsky, whose name I had not heard during
my stay in the U.S.A.
I must confess that I am indebted to the scholars and the library above in writing
this Turkish Grammar.
I am also grateful to my son Dr. Özgür Göknel who encouraged me to write this
book and to Vivatinell Warwick U.K., which sponsored to publish it.
YÜKSEL GÖKNEL

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CONTENTS
Page
Foreword
Contents
Transformational Generative Grammar
Turkish Grammar
Turkish Vowel and Consonant Harmony

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4
8
17
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Vowel Harmony
Consonant Harmony
Morphemes and Allomorphs
Derivational Morphemes and their Allomorphs
Morphemes Attached to Noun Stems to Produce Nouns
Morphemes Attached to Noun Stems to Produce Adjectives
Morphemes Attached to Adjective Stems to Produce Nouns
Morphemes Attached to Verb Stems to Produce Nouns
Morphemes Attached to Verb Stems to Produce Adjectives
Morphemes Attached to Noun Stems to Produce Verbs
Morphemes Attached to Adjective Stems to Produce Verbs
Using Adjectives as Adverbs
Morphemes Attached to Noun Stems to Produce Adverbs
Inflectional Morphemes (Çekim Ekleri)
The Inflectional Morphemes Attached To Nouns
The Defining [İ] Morpheme and its Allomorphs [i, ı, ü, u]
[E], [DE], [DEN] morphemes
“Possessor + Possessed” Noun Compounds (İsim Tamlamaları)
Definite Noun Compounds (Belirtili İsim Tamlamaları)
Indefinite Noun Compounds (Belirtisiz İsim Tamlamaları)
Noun Compounds Without Suffixes (Takısız Tamlamalar)
Noun + Infinitive Compounds (İsim Mastar Tamlamaları)
Prepositions (Eng) and Postpositions (Turk) (Edatlar)
Primary Stress, Secondary Stress and Intonation
English Prepositions and Turkish Postpositions
The Inflectional Morphemes Attached To Verbs
The Simple Present “be”
The Present Modals with Verb “be”
must be
can’t be
may be
may not be
The Question Forms of Verb “be”
have to be, should be, ought to be, needn’t be
have to be (zorundayım)
needn’t be (gerek yok)
The Simple Past Verb “be”

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28
30
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34
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47
48
53
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56
57
65
68
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77
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Interrogative Words
86
[MİŞ] (Rumor, Inference) (söylenti, anlam çıkarma)
89
Future Form Of “be” (will be)
91
The “there is”, “there are”; “have, (have got)”
92
there used to be, used to have
93
there must (may) be, there can’t be, there is going to be
93
Imperatıves and Wıshes
94
Wısh
96
The Simple Present Tense (Geniş Zaman)
97
The Verbs Ending With Vowels
100
Some Noun Stems Used Together With “et”, `yap”, “işle” to Produce Verbs 101
The Negative Form of the Simple Present Tense
103
The Simple Present Positive Question
105
The Simple Present Negative Question
106
The Question Words Used in the Simple Present Tense
107
The Present Continuous and the Present Perfect Continuous
109
The Verbs That Are Not Used In the Simple Present in Turkish
113
Turkish Verb Frames (Türkçe’de Fiil Çatıları)
115
Transitive and Intransitive Verbs
115
Reflexive Verbs
115
The Passive Transformation of the Intransitive Verbs
117
Reciprocal Verbs (İşteş Fiiller)
118
Both Transitively and Intransitively Used English Verbs
120
The Simple Past and the Present Perfect
125
Miş’li Past Tense (Rumor and Inference) (Miş’li Geçmiş)
132
The Simple Future and “be going to”
136
The Past Continuous Tense
139
The Past Perfect Continuous Tense
142
Was (were) going to
143
used to
143
The Rumor Forms of The Simple Present and The Present Cont. 145
The Past Perfect Tense
146
The Future Continuous Tense
147
The Future Perfect Tens
148
Infinitives (Mastarar)
148
The [mek, mak] Infinitives
150
The [me, ma] infinitives
153
The [iş, ış, üş, uş] infinitives
159
The [dik, dık, dük, duk, tik, tık, tük, tuk] infinitives
159
The Passive Infinitive
160
Modals
162
Present Modals
162
can, may [e-bil, a-bil]
162
must [meli, malı]
166
have to (zorunda)
168
needn’t (don’t have to)
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should (ought to)
Past Modals
Could
was (were) able to
would, could (polite request)
Perfect Modals
must have
can’t (couldn’t) have
should have (ought to have)
may have
might have
needn’t have
didn’t need to
Transformations (English)
The Nominalization of the Simple English Sentences
The Simple Sentences Transformed Into Determiners
The Productivity of Natural Languages
TheTransformed Simple Sentences Used as Adverbs
Turkish Sentence Nominalizations
Turkish Simple Sentence Nominalization
1: V - [DİK] - [pers] - ([İ])
Simple Sentences with Verb Stem “ol” (be)
Chain Noun Compounds
2. V- [DİK]- [pers]-([İ])
Nominalized Sentences Containing “question words”

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185
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189
191
193
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196
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202

Turkish Determiner + Determined Compounds
The Passive Transformation
The Verb Frames
The Structural Composition of the Causative Verb Frames
A Short List of Verb Frames
The Order Of Allomorphs
Causative Verb Frame Examples
Passive Causative
Some Example Sentences of the Verb Frames
Adverb Clauses (Syntactic Adverbs)
Time
before
after
when
while
as soon as
until
“by” and “by the time”
since
Cause and Reason

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262
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268
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Concession and Contrast
Purpose
Place
Manner
as
as if (as though)
Result
so … that
such … that
“too + adjective + to + V + için” and “adjective + enough + to + Verb”
Degree
Comparative Degree
Superlative Degree
Positive or Negative Equality
Parallel Proportion
Wish
wish + would
wish + past subjunctive
wish + past perfect or perfect modal
Conditional Sentences
Present Real Supposition
Present Unreal (contrary to fact) Supposition
Past Real Supposition
Past Unreal (contrary to fact) Supposition
Orders and Requests
Plain Orders and Requests
Polite Requests
Polite Refusals
Offers
{ V + [İP] }
Question Tags ( değil mi?)
So do I (Neither do I)
Conjunctions and Transitional Phrases
Intensifiers
Reported Speech
Symbols and Abbreviations
References

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TRANSFORMATIONAL GENERATIVE GRAMMAR
Before we begin with the fundamentals of the Turkish Grammar, it may be
useful to start with a short summary of the essential concepts of the
Transformational Generative Grammar. This revolutionary grammar began
to be discussed on the linguistics stage after Prof. Noam Chomsky had published his first book “Syntactic Structures” in 1957. In his book, he claims
that there is another abstract layer of meaning and language generating
system below the words and sentences that we hear or read. He calls it
“deep structure”. The chain of words that we actually hear, read or even
picture in our minds before articulating or writing it is called “surface structure”. To understand these two layers of structures, let us first consider the
following surface structure sentence:
The brown cat was chased by the black dog.
If we are asked to interpret this sentence, we can easily dig out three
reasonable short thoughts out of it and understand the following:
“the cat was brown”, “the dog was black” “the dog chased the cat”
These three thoughts, which are considered nearly the same in all natural
languages, have been developed and shaped in the labyrinths of the mind
as “deep structures” before they are worded in a language. How the items
of these thoughts are gained, stored, and retrieved by the human mind is the
concern of Cognitive Linguistics. These shortest groups of thought without
words, which covers concrete and abstract concepts and their characteristics
and the experiences of an individual are transformed and shaped into specific language words, morphemes and rules to be used in the “Nominal
Phrase + Verbal Phrase” mentally inborn sentence pattern.
In the first step, the abstract thought “the cat was brown”, which includes
some fundamental concepts such as subject, object, verb, time, place and
reason, etc. is transformed into “the cat was brown" in English, or "kedi
kahverengi idi" in Turkish surface structures. This thought can be transformed into any natural language in the world with the help of the specific
lexical, transformational, and phonological rules of any target language.
Using the same transformational rules, the mind can also transform “the
dog was black” into  “the black dog”, and “the cat was brown” into 
“the brown cat”. When these two transformed units are embedded into the
sentence “the dog chased the cat”, we get the sentence “the black dog
chased the brown cat”.
If we want to use this last sentence in the NP part of the VP, (V + NP), we
transform it into  “the black dog that chased the brown cat”. Then, we
use it after the verb “V” of the sentence, so the sentence becomes:

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The gardener kicked the black dog that chased the brown cat.
NP

V

NP
VP

“The dog chased the cat” can also be transformed into other sentence
types such as:  “The cat was chased by the dog”, and  “the cat that
was chased by the dog”, etc.
The transformed and worded surface structures can also be operated the
other way round by the listener or the reader that has heard or read the
surface structure. This activation is simultaneously carried out by the mind of
an individual by digging out the deep structures by interpretation.
The aim of this book is not to teach “Transformational Generative Grammar”, but to rewrite a Turkish Grammar in the light of American Linguistics,
which has been developed since Bloomfield.
A Transformational Generative Grammar aims not only at describing a specific grammar such as English, but it also aims at describing all the grammars of all natural languages. It uses initials to cover all the words and
phrase structure rules of all languages. In all languages, there are Nominal
Phrases and Verbal Phrases, and there are nouns, determiners, adjectives
and adverbs …
Theorists of The Transformational Generative linguistics generally agree that
there is a syntactic component in the mind of a human being that keeps,
coordinates, and works the base component, the semantic component,
the transformational component, and the phonological component coherently. Working in close coordination, these language-producing components form sentences and help to produce the sounds of a language. People
also receive and analyze these sounds deep in the mind until they understand them.
In order to understand this interwoven, interactive, and complicated
mechanism and process, it is better to begin with the semantic component
that accumulates all the words and morphemes of a certain language with all
the characteristics embedded in them. For example, when we think of the
word “boy”, we know that it is “masculine”, “young”, and “able to do all
human activities”. However, when we use the word “apple”, we already know
that it is “fruit”, “it is eaten”, “it may be red or green”, and “it has a certain
taste and smell”, etc.
Besides the words (lexicon) of a certain language, the semantic component
and the syntactic component also possesses the innate common phrase
structures of the Universal Grammar shared by all human beings. (Further
explanations of it can be found in the article “Chomsky and the Universal
Grammar” written by Don Crus.)

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The phrase structures are flexible and expandable mental molds where
linguistic potential is shaped and developed. With the assistance of the
transformational and phonological components, t hese Phrase Structures
produce sentences.
The surface structure is what we actually articulate or write, or even what we
think in words before we speak or write.
The sentence producing system starts to work with the intention of an
individual to express him in words. He shapes his thoughts into Phrase
Structure mold, then words and articulates them. During this procedure, the
semantic component chooses words and other language units; arranges and
installs them in Phrase Structure patterns.
The first mental mold is the mold of Nominal Phrase (NP). The language
units suitable for this mold may be pronouns: “I”, “you”, “he”, etc., proper
nouns: “Jack”, “Mary”, “Ahmet”, etc., adjective compounds: “a beautiful
lady”, “a sunny morning”, “an interesting story”, “a heavy basket” “Jack’s
car”, a noun compound: “the garden gate”, “the name of the dog”, “the
result of the examination”, a phrase: “the books on the table”, “the children
in the garden”, “a bunch of flowers for my mother”; or a transformed
simple sentence: “the book that I read”, “the boys that were fighting”, “what
he said”, “the reason why I was late”, etc. All these units are shaped and designed by the help of the syntactic, the semantic, the transformational and
the phonological components working coherently.
The Verbal Phrase (VP) is composed of a Nominal Phrase (NP), whose
content is given above, and a Verb (V). The Verb mold covers verb stems,
and all auxiliary verbs and suffixes, such as, “is”, “are”, “has”, “been”,
“have“, “must”, “can“, “will”, [İNG], [ED], etc. In Turkish, in place of these
auxiliary verbs, there are suffixes (morphemes). All these verb stems and
suffixes are ended with personal suffixes (morphemes) in Turkish, which
will be explained in detail in the following chapters.
There is another important language unit in a nominal phrase called Determiner (D). These units, which define or describe nouns, are placed before or after nouns according to the characteristics of a certain language.
The article "the" is a sign that implies an adjective, an adjective phrase, or
an adjective clause following a noun. Only the words "the book" do not
convey satisfactory information. When someone says "the book", the listener
thinks that something should be following these words. If he says "the red
book", "the book on the table" or "the book that I read", the listener is satisfied with it, and waits for the Verbal Phrase to be uttered to complete the
sentence. As a result, we can say that the article "the" is a sign that implies
the real determiner that may be either mentally in store in one's mind, or
in real words following or preceding the noun. Therefore, all adjectives,

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adjective phrases, and adjective clauses are determiners that are implied
by the article "the".
In Turkish, when nouns are used in the subject position, no defining
allomorphs or words like "the" are used. For example, in the sentences
"Mavi kitap benim" “The blue book is mine”, "Masanın üzerindeki kitap
benim" “The book on the table is mine” or "Dün okuduğun kitap benim" “The
book that you read yesterday is mine”, the nouns "kitap" are used without
the determining (suffixes) morphemes [İ] in Turkish. In these sentences
"mavi", "masanın üsündeki" and "dün okuduğun" expressions are enough to
determine the nouns "kitap". However, when the same expressions are used
in the object position, when they are determined, they inevitably take one
of the [i, ı, ü, u] defining allomorphs attached to nouns, pronouns or to the
“determiner + determined” compounds:
Masa-nın üstündeki kitap-ı gör-üyor musun?
(ma*sa*nın / üs*tün*de*ki / ki*ta*bı / gö*rü*yor / mu*sun↷)
Can you see the book on the table?
Masa-nın üstündeki kitap benim.
(ma*sa*nın / üs*tün*de*ki / ki*tap / be*nim↷)
The book on the table is mine.
As it is seen, when the underlined part of the above expression is used in
the object position, the noun “kitap” is suffixed with the defining allomorph
[İ], but when the same part is used in the subject position, it is used without
the determining suffix [İ] although the noun “book” is determined.
Some grammarians think that adjectives, adjective phrases and adjective
clauses are optional elements. They are optional, but when they are aimed
at determining nouns, they have to follow certain rules in Nominal Phrases.
In the following example, you can see how determiners are used either
preceding or following nouns:
the book; the book on the table; the books that are on the table;
D

N

D

N

D

D

N

D

D

the book that you have read
D

N

D

The purpose of using a language is to convey thoughts or pieces of
information to other people. A word or words that cannot convey them are
only sounds.
The order of the determiners, which define or describe nouns, are shaped by
the Phrase Structure rules. The transformational and the phonological
components of a specific language help them to transform thought into
concrete language. For example, in Turkish sentences, the places of
determiners are different from those of the English language.
Consider the following example:

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“kitap-ı” “masanın üstündeki kitap-ı “ “okuduğun kitap-ı
N

D

D

N

D

D

N

D

“okuduğun kitap”
D

N

“N” represents “nouns”, which are words like, “apple”, “boy”, “girl”, “dream”,
“happiness”, “koşmak”, “okuma”, “okuyuş”, or pronouns like “I”, “you”, “he”,
“she”, “it”, “we”, “they”. Besides these pronouns, there are some other
pronouns called objective pronouns such as “me”, “you”, “him”, “her”, “it”,
“us” and “them”. Furthermore, other than these pronouns, there are
possessive adjectives such as “my”, ”your”, “his”, “her”, “its”, “our” and
“their”. All possessive adjectives are determiners, that is why they are
named as possessive adjectives. Syntactically described, they are the possessor parts of the “possessor + possessed” noun compounds:
my
possessor

happiness |
possessed

her
possessor

anxiety | the girl’s
possessed

possessor

fright
possessed

The determiner “the” concept is embedded in the pronouns and the possessive adjectives of the English language. That is why, “the”, “a”, “that”, or
the like, are not used with them. For instance, “the I”, “the you”, “a me”, “the
my” are impossible in English.
Some linguists consider determiners as optional elements in phrase
structure rules. This is because pronouns are used without determiners in
English. Subject pronouns I, you, he, she, it, we and they, and object pronouns me, you, him, her, it, us, them and possessive adjectives my, your,
his, etc. are all used without determiners.
On the contrary, when Turkish pronouns are used in the object position,
such as, “ben-i ”, “sen-i”, “biz-i”, etc., the defining suffix [İ] morpheme,
which stands for the “the” of the English language, is placed after “ben ”,
“sen”, “o”, “biz”, “siz”, “onlar”. Literally, they are written and said as “ben-i” “I
the”; “sen-i” “you the”; “o-/n/u” “he the”; “jack-’i“ “Jack the”. This “the”
concept in English is fulfilled by changing “I” into “me”, “you” into “you”, “he”
into “him”, “she” into “her”, etc.
In English, people say “I saw the girl.” “ I saw her.”
In Turkish, people say “Ben kız-ı gördüm.” “Ben o-/n/u gördüm.”
As it can be guessed, the pronoun “her” has a defining concept mentally
embedded in it. In Turkish, however, the same concept is attached to the
pronoun “o” as the determining morpheme [İ].
Consequently, we can say that all pronouns and proper nouns may have
determiners either mentally embedded in them, or attached to them as allomorphs. When Turkish people say "masa-nın üstün-de-ki kitap", they mean

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"the book on the table". In the Turkish sentence, "kitap" is without a defining
suffix or a word. This is because, the adjective phrase "masanın üs-tün-deki" is enough to determine the noun "kitap". Consider the following sentences:
Ben siz-i gördüm. I saw you.
Ben jack’-i gördüm. I saw Jack.
As it is seen, the pronoun "you" and the proper noun "Jack" are used without
determiners in English. However, in Turkish, both "siz-i" and "Jack-i" are
used with the determining suffix [İ] when they are in the object position.
The opposite process is followed with the Turkish nouns when they are in
the subject position: When we want to say “the book is on the table”, we do
not use a defining morpheme attached to the noun “kitap”. The absence of
this defining morpheme, however, implies that the noun is defined, so the
Turkish equivalent of “the book is on the table” is “kitap-Ø” masanın üstünde”. The zero morpheme stands for a zero mental determiner.
When a noun represents all its kind, it is not used with definers or plural
morphemes in Turkish as it is done in English. In Turkish, people say “Ben
kitap okumayı severim.” In English, in the equivalent of this sentence, the
plural morpheme should be used: “I like reading books.” This example
shows us that in the Turkish sentence the word "kitap" has a plural or an
“all” concept mentally embedded in it..
To sum up the above, we can say that no nouns or pronouns can stand
without determiners in sentences. These determiners may be either separate words like "the" or "a" in English, or [i, ı, ü, u] defining allomorphs in
Turkish; or they may be embedded as determining concepts in common
nouns, proper nouns, and pronouns. Furthermore, the nouns that are defined or described by adjective phrases do not need such defining suffıxes
or words in Turkish when they are in the subject position.
When we consider the following sentences, we can see how it works:
The symbol “S” represents a sentence as a whole, which has to include all
language units in it without leaving any one of them outside its composition.
S  I saw her.
S  NP + VP
In this sentence, “I” is a Nominal Phrase that includes the determiner “the”
embedded in it; and so is “her”. “Saw her” is a Verbal Phrase. This sentence
may be one of the shortest sentences in English. The following sentences,
however, are longer, but they are also composed of a Nominal Phrase and a
Verbal Phrase:

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S

I saw a dog that was chasing a rabbit while I was driving to Ankara.
NP

VP

S  The dog that was chasing the rabbit was fierce.
NP

VP

Just as determiners are used together with nouns, so are adverbs used
around verbs to amplify their meaning by adding some important information
into their function. Finally, we can say that adverbs, adverb phrases and
adverb clauses are the elements of the Verbal Phrases. One important fact
to add to this definition is the instability of the position of an adverb in a
sentence. It may be used in the beginning, in the middle, or in the end of a
sentence such as:
“Sometimes I met her.” “I sometimes met her.” “ I met her sometimes.”
However, such sentences as, “I met sometimes her.” are not grammatical in
English because such adverbs can only be used outside “verb + object”;
not between them.
The prepositional phrases such as, “on the table”, or “in the garden” may
either be used as a determiner like “the books on the table”, or as an
adverb phrase like “A girl is dancing on the table.”
“V” contains verb stems like “go”, “clean”, “wash”,“sleep”, “discover”, “eat”;
and besides them, one or more auxiliary verbs are used before them such as
“has cleaned”, “has been cleaning”, “may be cleaned”, “must have been
cleaned”. Some suffixes are also attached to a verb stem such as “cleaned”, “clean-ing”. These are all the contents of the symbol “V”. So, the verb
stems, together with the auxiliary verbs and suffixes, convey a full concept of
“verb”. The “VP” initials may also cover adverbs, adverb phrases, or adverb
clauses as well as Nominal Phrases. However, when ad-verbs are used as
intensifiers, they may also be used before adjectives and adverbs.
In short, a Verbal Phrase (VP) may be composed of "NP + V" or "NP + V +
Adv”.
In phrase structures, the plus symbol (+) is used not to show the order of
words, but to show the contents of a “VP”. For instance, when we write VP
V + NP, we do not mean that “First use a verb and after it use a nominal
phrase”, we mean, “Use a verb together with a nominal phrase.”
This is necessary because in some languages, like Turkish and Japanese,
verbs are used after nominal phrases. Furthermore, in mathematics 5=2+3
or 5= 3+2 shows that the plus sign may not show order. At last, the arrow
“→” means that we can rewrite the previous initials as the following ones.
Now, we can show how phrase structure rules of a mental sentence chain
is woven and produced in any language.

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Thought and language are mental faculties that are independent of one
another; but they act interdependently. Thought has multiple dimensions.
One stores items of thought in his mind without organizing them in a certain
chain following one another. When the time comes to produce a sentence,
however, these irregularly scattered items of thought are put in certain linear
language molds to be produced by the speech organs. The linking bridge
that transforms thought into a language is the Phrase Structure rules of the
Universal Grammar.
As soon as thought is directed into Phrase Structures (which are thought to
be innate), they are molded into a linear system and become ready to be
produced by the help of the semantic, transformational and phonological
components (which are all learned) of the language-producing system of the
mind.
Immediately after the following abstract items of thought are transformed into
the words and rules of the target language, they are materialized to be used
as surface structures:
INNATE SYNTACTIC ABSTRACT LEVEL
S  NP + VP
NP  D + N
VP  V + NP
V  V
LEARNED SURFACE STRUCTURE
S
NP
VP
V

 the boy + ate an apple
 the + boy
 V + an apple
 ate

If we apply this rule to Turkish, we get:
S

 çocuk - Ø + bir elma yedi
NP
VP

When a determined noun is used in the subject position, a zero defining
morpheme “Ø” is used in Turkish. The absence of this determiner implies
that the noun is defined. In other words, it means “the boy”.
NP  çocuk
VP  NP + V
NP  bir elma
V  yedi
The above surface sentence is “Çocuk bir elma yedi”

15

One cannot use any noun in the subject or in the object position in a
sentence as one wishes. For instance, when someone tries to build up sentences like
“The apple ate the boy.”
“A cat chased a dream.”
“A letter wrote a car.”
“Happiness cleaned the house.”
the semantic component in the mind simultaneously interferes and eliminates these unreasonable sentence chains. Furthermore, the ungrammatical chains, such as “apple an boy the ate” are also eliminated because
the semantic component allows only grammatically well formed sentences
to be produced.
In English, the determiners "a”, “the”, “some" are words, and therefore, they
are not attached to noun stems. The only exception to this rule is the plural
morpheme [S], which is attached to noun stems such as “toys”, “umbrellas”
and “books”. This is completely different in Turkish. Some determiners are
used before noun stems as separate words, as they are used in English, but
some others are attached to stems: bir çocuk “a boy”, çocuk-lar “boys”,
öğretmen-ler “teachers”, öğretmen-i “the teacher”, öğretmenler-i “the
teachers”.
In this book, hyphens (-) are inserted between stems and suffixes (allomorphs); they do not separate syllables. Syllables are separated by
asterisks (*). For example, in “kalem-i”, the suffix [i] is separated from the
noun stem “kalem” by a hyphen, but when syllables are separated,
asterisks are used as they are used in (ka*le*mi). The syllables printed in
bold types show the primarily stressed syllables in speech.
In English grammars, the plural “s” suffix is not considered as a defining
suffix because it is not a word like “the” or “a”, but when its function is considered, we can say that it defines whether a noun is either singular or plural.
Furthermore, the existence or nonexistence of a plural morpheme attached
to a noun or embedded in plural pronouns, such as “we”, “you”,“they”
influence the verb form. So, we can write “the boy” as “D + N” and “the
boy-s” as “D + N + D”. This is necessary because a plural morpheme
effects the auxiliary verb forms, such as, “are”, “have”, and “write-writes”, etc.
The plural forms of such verbs have to be used when a plural suffix is
attached to nouns. There are some irregular plural noun forms in English:
“men”, “women”, “children”, “mice”, etc. These plural nouns can be
considered as plural concepts embedded in nouns.
The concept “D” has to be extended to cover optional elements as well;
such as the phrase “in the garden”, or the clauses, “who are in the garden”
or “who are playing in the garden”. So, the phrases like “the boys in the gar-

16

den” or “the boys who are playing in the garden”, which are transformed
sentences, can be formulated as: “D+N+D+D”:
the =D, boy= N, s= D, who are playing in the garden = D.
“the boys who are playing in the garden” (D+N+D+D) is a syntactic
component that can occupy the places of nouns or pronouns in a sentence.
Such constituents may be called “syntactic nouns” because they are
shaped by the transformational component in order to be used in Nominal
Phrases. The function of these units in sentences is nominal. How simple
sentences are transformed into adverb clauses or syntactic adverbs will be
explained in the adverb clauses section.
Adverbs, adverb phrases, and adverb clauses are the components of
Verbal Phrases when they modify verbs. These adverbial components may
be used in different parts of sentences.
In Turkish, all the above auxiliary verbs and suffıxes are morphemes
attached to verb stems following one another. While this suffixation is being
carried on, the morphemes are changed into their allomorphs as a result of
the vowel and consonant harmony rules of the Turkish language, which will
be described in detail in the following chapters.
Some fundamental adverbial concepts such as time, place, cause, reason,
wish, condition, contrast, manner or politeness, etc. are triggered by
mental stimuli to be expressed in an ongoing sentence production. While this
process is going on, simple sentences are transformed into dependent
adverb clauses (syntactic adverbs) containing the above semantic concepts.

TURKISH GRAMMAR
After the above short survey of the universal Transformational Generative
Grammar (with some interpretations of my own), we can begin with the
sound system of The Turkish language.
Turkish has 29 letters in its alphabet. Some of these letters / o, u, a, ı / and /
ö, ü, e, i / are vowels, and the others / b, c, ç, d, f, g, ğ, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r,
s, ş, t, v, y, z / are consonants.
All the above letters represent phonemes, that is why they are shown
between “/ /” signs. Phonemics is not interested in detailed phonetic differences. Some of the vowels / ı, ö, ü / do not exist in English. They are pronounced: /ı/ as in English “again”; /ö/ as in German “schön”; and /ü/ as in
German “hütte” respectively.
Among the consonants, there are the / ç, ş, ğ / phonemes, which are
pronounced as “ch” as in “church”, “sh” as in “fish”; and to produce the /ğ/

17

phoneme, which does not exist in English, first produce /g/ phoneme and
make it longer by letting your breath pass between your tongue and the hard
palate of your mouth while vibrating your vocal cords.

TURKISH VOWEL AND CONSONANT HARMONY
Turkish is said to be an agglutinative language, which means suffixes are
attached to stems one following the other in a row to arrange words. In order
to understand how these suffix chains are formed, one should understand
the vowel and consonant harmony rules of the Turkish language before one
begins to attach suffixes to stems and to the suffixes following them.
VOWEL HARMONY
To produce a vowel harmony sequence, a Turkish speaker follows two
certain harmony chains:
1. The hard vowel harmony chain. 2. The thin vowel harmony chain.
1. The hard vowel harmony chain is “o → u → a

 ı”

2. The thin vowel harmony chain is “ö → ü → e  i”
In both chains, the first vowels /o/ and /ö/ never repeat themselves. The
other vowels can be repeated as many times as necessary. The arrow (→)
points to the vowel that will follow the previous one. The arrows (), pointing
to both directions, show that /i/ may follow /e/; or /e/ may follow /i/. In the
hard vowel harmony chain, /a/ and /ı/ do the same. Furthermore, besides
the arrows, the letters “r” are put under repeatable vowels to complete our
formulas:
1.The hard vowel harmony chain:

“o → ur → ar  ır”

2. The thin vowel harmony chain:

“ö → ür → er  ir

As one can see, the two formulas look exactly like one another. All the words
in the Turkish language follow either the first or the second harmony chain.
The words borrowed from other languages do not follow these chains; but
the suffixes attached to them follow the vowels of the last syllables of such
words. Consequently, one can build up meaningless words made up of only
vowels following the two vowel chains:
“o*u*u*a*ı*a*ı”, “o*a*ı*a”, “ü*ü*e*e*i”, “ö*e*i*e”
For instance:

18

“kom*şu*ya” (o*u*a); “kom*şu*lar*dan” (o*u*a*a);
“o*luş*tur*duk*la*rı*mız*dan” (o*u*u*u*a*ı*ı*a);
“o*ku*la” (o*u*a); “ten*ce*re*ye” (e*e*e*e)
One can make up Turkish meaningless vowel chains as many as possible
using the above vowel chains. I advise those who are interested in learning
Turkish to make up vowel chains like the chains above, and repeat them
loudly again and again. In doing so, they can memorize the Turkish vowel
harmony chains easily and soundly as they learn a piece of music. When
they repeat them, they may even feel and sound as if they were speaking
Turkish.
As it has been mentioned before, borrowed words do not follow the vowel
harmony chains, but the last syllables of these words are attached to suffixes
in accordance with the vowel harmony rules:
patates-ler-i (pa*ta*tes*le*ri) “the potatoes”; televizyon-u
(te*le*viz*yo*nu) “the television”; mandalina-/y/ı (man*da *li*
na*/y/ı) “the tangerine”; sigara-/y/ı (si*ga*ra*/y/ı) “the cigarette”.

-

The /y/ phonemes used above are glides (phonemes) inserted between two
vowels to help them to pass the voice from one vowel to the following one
smoothly and harmoniously.
One more thing to add to the explanation above is that the words that are
formed of two separate words do not follow the above vowel harmony
chains:
kahverengi (kahve + rengi) “brown”; buzdolabı (buz + dolabı) “refrigerator”; bilgisayar (bilgi + sayar) “computer”; tavanarası (tavan + arası)
“attic”.
Besides the above vowel harmony rules, there are three more essential
vowel rules to consider:
1.The verb stems ending with vowels drop these vowels when they are attached to the allomorphs of [İYOR]. These vowels are double underlined:
bekle-iyor → bekliyor; başla-ıyor → başlıyor; anla-ıyor → anlıyor;
gizle-iyor → gizliyor; oku-uyor → okuyor; atla-ıyor → atlıyor
ye-iyor → yiyor; gözle-iyor → gözlüyor; gizle-iyor → gizliyor
2. When the last syllables of the noun stems, the verb stems, and the
inflectional morphemes end with vowels, the first vowels of the morphemes
following them drop. For example, when the /i/ in the [im] allomorph drop,
only the /m/ phoneme is attached to “anne”: "anne-im” →"annem”. The
dropped vowels are double underlined:

19

anne-in  annen; tarla-ım tarlam; araba-ınız  arabanız; kafa-ın 
kafan; git-ti-in  gittin; bekle-di-ik  bekledik; gül-dü-ük  güldük;
yakala-dı-ım  yakaladım; git-me-im  gitmem; çalış-ma-ım  çalış-mam;
temiz-le-in-mek  temizlenmek; dinle-ir misin?  dinler misin?; ol-sa-ım 
olsam. (All the double underlined vowels drop.)
3. Sometimes the second rule above becomes inapplicable to avoid the
change of meaning in the suffixed word. For instance, when we attach the
allomorph [ız] to the word “oku-ma” without the /y/ glide, it becomes “oku-maız”. If we drop the /ı/ phoneme, the word becomes (o*ku*maz), which means
“He doesn’t read”. But if a /y/ glide is put between [ma] and [ız], the word
becomes “o*ku*ma*/y/ız”, which means “We don’t read”. Therefore, in the
following suffixation the first vowels of the personal suffixes do not drop, but
the /y/ glides are used instead:
oku-ma-/y/ız  okumayız; gel-me-/y/iz  gelmeyiz; başla-/y/ım→ başlayım
CONSONANT HARMONY
Consonants are grouped into two subdivisions:
voiced consonants:
/ b, c, d, g, ğ, j, y, l, m, n, r, v, z /
unvoiced consonants: / ç, f, k, p, s, ş, t /
The voiced consonants are the phonemes that are produced by vibrating
the vocal cords while the breath is passing through the throat. To understand this voiced and unvoiced difference, first produce /v/ phoneme, which
vibrates the vocal cords in your throat, and then, without changing the position of your teeth and lips, produce the same sound without vibrating the
vocal cords to produce the unvoiced /f/. In doing this, you feel no vibration in
your throat. The consonants that vibrate the vocal cords are named voiced
consonants; the unvoiced consonants do not vibrate them. By the way,
one should keep in mind that all vowels and voiced consonants vibrate the
vocal cords. The vowels and the voiced consonants, which vibrate the
vocal cords, are called vocals. Only the unvoiced consonants do not
vibrate them. In Turkish, voiced consonants are called "yumuşak sessizler"
and the unvoiced consonants are called "sert sessizler".
Some "unvoiced consonants" turn into their "voiced counterparts" when
the suffixes starting with vowels are attached to noun stems:
/p/ changes into /b/: kitap (kitabı, kitaba), sebep (sebebi, sebebe), kebap
(kebabı, kebaba), çorap (çorabı, çoraba), dolap (dolabı, dolaba), şarap
(şarabı, şaraba), hesap (hesabı, hesaba).
/ç/ changes into /c/: ağaç (ağacı, ağaca), sayaç (sayacı, sayaca), amaç
(amacı, amaca), ayraç (ayracı, ayraca), demeç (demeci, demece), kazanç
(kazancı, kazanca), tümleç (tümleci, tümlece).

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/k/ changes into /ğ/: sokak (sokağı, sokağa), tabak (tabağı, tabağa), kürek
(kü-reği, küreğe), bebek (bebeği, bebeğe), köpek (köpeği,köpeğe), ayak
(ayağı, ayağa), bardak (bardağı, bardağa), kabak (kabağı, kabağa), soluk
(soluğu, solu-ğa), yürek (yüreği, yüreğe).
/t/ changes into /d/: adet (adedi, adede), kanat (kanadı, kanada), söğüt
(söğüdü, söğüde), umut (umu:du, umu:da), yoğurt (yoğurdu, yoğurda),
armut (armudu, armuda).
The allomorphs of [İN][in, ın, ün, un] also undergo the same changes
when they are attached to noun stems:
kitap-ın (kitabın), sebep-in (sebebin), kebap-ın (kebabın), çorap-ın (çorabın), ağaç-ın (ağacın), amaç-ın (amacın), sokak-ın (sokağın), kürek-in
(küre-ğin), bebek-in (bebeğin), ayak-ın (ayağın), kanat-ın (kanadın),
yoğurt-un (yoğurdun).
However, some /t/ phonemes do not change:
Hayat (ha*ya:*tı), (ha*ya:*ta), (ha*ya:*tın); sanat (san*a*tı), (san*a*ta),
(san*a*tın); sıfat (sı*fa*tı), (sı*fa*ta), (sı*fa*tın); saat (sa*a*ti), (sa*a*te),
sa*a*tin); sepet (se*pe*ti), (se*pe*te), (se*pe*tin); gölet (gö*le*ti, gö*le*te,
gö*le*tin); demet (de*me*ti), (de*me*te), (de*me*tin).
The monosyllabic stems ending with unvoiced consonants do not change
when they get the [İ], [E], [DE], [DEN] and [personal] morphemes.
ek (eki, eke, ekte, ekten, ekin), sap (sapı, sapa, sapta, saptan, sapın), ip (ipi,
ipe, ipte, ipten, ipin), hap (hapı, hapa, hapta, haptan, hapın), tüp (tüpü, tüpe,
tüpte, tüpten, tüpün), top (topu, topa, topta, toptan, topun), saç (saçı, saça,
saçta, şaçtan, saçın), iç (içi, içe, içte, içten, için), göç (göçü, göçe, göçte,
göçten, göçün), maç (maçı, maça, maçta, maçtan, maçın), kök (kökü, köke,
kökte, kökten, kökün), ok (oku, oka, okta, oktan, okun ), yük ( yükü, yüke,
yükte, yükten, yükün), kürk (kürkü, kürke, kürkte, kürkün), Türk (Türk’ü,
Türk’e, Türk’te, Türk’ten, Türk’ün), at (atı, ata, atta, attan, atın), et (eti, ete,
ette, etten, etin), süt (sütü, süte, sütte, sütten, sütün), ot (otu, ota, otta,
ottan,otun), kart (kartı, karta, kartta, karttan, kartın).
However, the final phonemes of some monosyllabic nouns do change when
they are attached only to [i, ı, ü, u], [e, a] and [in, ın, ün, un] allomorphs;
they do not change when they are attached to the allomorphs of the
phonemes of [DE] and [DEN]:
but (budu, buda, budun, butta, buttan), dip (dibi, dibe, dibin, dipte, dipten),
çok (çoğu, çoğa, çoğun, çokta, çoktan), gök (göğü, göğe, göğün, gökte,
gökten), kap (kabı, kaba, kabın, kapta, kaptan), uç (ucu, uca, ucun, uçta,
uçtan), yurt (yurdu, yurda, yurdun, yurtta, yurttan), kurt (kurdu, kurda,
kurdun, kurtta, kurttan), tat (tadı, tada, tadın, tatta, tattan).

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When [İ] or [E] vowel morphemes come after the nouns ending with vowels,
the /y/ linking phonemes (glides) are inserted between these two vowels to
maintain the harmonious connection:
testi (tes*ti*/y/i, tes*ti*/y/e); araba (araba/y/ı, araba/y/a); tarla (tarla/y/ı,
tarla/y/a); salata (salata/y/ı, salata/y/a); martı (martı/y/ı, martı/y/a); tava
(tava/y/ı, tava/y/a); teneke (teneke/y/I, teneke/y/e); makara (makara/y/ı,
makara/y/a); kundura (kundura/y/ı, kundura/y/a); kafa (kafa/y/ı, kafa/y/a);
su (su/y/u, su/y/a).
When the nouns ending with vowels are attached to the allomorphs of [İN],
which are used in “possessor + possessed” noun compounds, the /n/
glides are inserted between the two vowels:
araba (araba-/n/ın) (a*ra*ba*nın),
testi (testi-/n/in) (tes*ti*nin),
tarla (tarla-/n/ın) (tar*la*nın),
salata (salata-/n/ın) (sa*la*ta*nın),
tava (tava-/n/ın) (ta*va*nın),
tavan (tavan-ın) (ta*va*nın),
kafa (kafa-/n/ın) (ka*fa*nın),
makara (makara-/n/ın) (ma*ka*ra*nın),
martı (martı-/n/ın) (mar*tı*nın),
çekmece (çekmece-/n/in) (çek*me*ce*nin),
bilmece (bilmece-/n/in) (bil*me* ce*nin),
kaygı (kaygı-/n/ın) (kay*gı*nın)
When pronouns are used in the possessor position, only the “o” pronoun is
attached to “un” possessor suffix together with the /n/ glide as those of the
nouns:
ben-im, sen-in, o-/n/un, biz-im, siz-in, onlar-ın
Exception: su (su/y/un). Example: “araba-/n/ın hız-ı”, “su-/y/un hız-ı”.

MORPHEMES and ALLOMORPHS
In linguistics, morphemes are defined as the smallest meaningful language
units. For instance, the word “um*brel*la” has three syllables. None of
these three syllables are significant units by themselves; they have sense
only when they are used together. So, these three syllables form a single
shortest meaningful unit together, and consequently, umbrella is both a
morpheme and a word. Such words are called free morphemes.
However, although the suffixes are also the smallest meaningful units, they
do not convey any sense unless they are attached to stems. Such morphemes are called bound morphemes.

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All the words have stems like “open”, “clean”, “beauty”, “success”, “white”,
“book”, etc. To these stems some morphemes (suffixes or prefixes) are
attached. For instance, “open-ed”, “clean-ed”, “success-ful”, “beauti-ful”,
“soft-en”, “teach-er “, “ir-respons-ible”, “un-count-able”, “un-necessari-ly”,
“go-ing”, etc.
As one can see, there are two kinds of suffıxes and prefixes in the given
examples. Some of these morphemes change the meaning and the part of
speech they belong with when they are attached to different stems; some
others, only help to use these stems in different sections of sentences
without changing their stem meanings.
A morpheme that changes the meaning of a stem is called a derivational
morpheme (yapım eki); the other one, which does not change the meaning
of a stem, is called an inflectional morpheme (çekim eki). Both the
derivational and inflectional morphemes are bound morphemes.
Some morphemes (suffixes in Turkish) have different pronunciation variants
that bear the same meaning. For example, in English, when the plural [S]
morpheme is attached to the noun “book”, it is pronounced as /s/; in “boy-s”
as /z/, and in “box-es” as /iz/. As they are the different pronunciation variants
of the same morpheme [S], they are named as the allomorphs of the
morpheme [S].
There are a lot more morphemes and their allomorphs in Turkish than there
are in English. This is because bound morphemes undergo some vowel
and consonant changes according to the vowel and consonant rules of the
Turkish language when they are attached to stems and to one another, and
this process causes different allomorphs to arise.

DERIVATIONAL MORPHEMES and their ALLOMORPHS
Yapım Ekleri
Derivational morphemes (suffixes) are bound morphemes that change the
meaning and the part of speech of a stem used in a sentence:
MORPHEMES ATTACHED TO NOUN STEMS TO PRODUCE NOUNS
[Cİ] allomorphs: [ci, cı, cü, cu, çi, çı, çü, çu]
When the nouns ending with vocals (vowels and voiced consonants) are
attached to the allomorphs of [Cİ], they take [ci, cı, cü, cu] allomorphs; but
when they are attached to nouns ending with unvoiced consonants (sert
sessizler), they take [çi, çı, çü, çu] allomorphs:
peynir-ci (cheese seller), posta-cı (postman), üzüm-cü (grapes seller),
turşu-cu (pickles seller), sepet-çi (basket maker), balık-çı (fisherman), sütçü (milkman), ok-çu (archer), aş-çı (cook), kale-ci (goal-keeper), kahve-ci

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(coffee seller), saat-çi (watch repairer or seller), mobilya-cı (furniture seller),
kaçak-çı (smuggler), musluk-çu (plumber), yaban-cı (foreigner), çiçek-çi
(florist), yol-cu (traveler), sanat-çı (artist), göz-cü (watch, watchman), sözcü (spokesman), politika-cı (politician), milliyet-çi (nationalist), diş-çi
(dentist), kira-cı (tenant), şarkı-cı (singer), börek-çi (someone who sells
pies), boya-cı (painter), demir-ci (blacksmith).
[LİK] allomorphs: [lik, lık, lük, luk]
meyve-lik (a bowl where fruit is kept), kitap-lık (bookcase), göz-lük (eyeglasses), odun-luk (a place where firewood is kept), ağız-lık (cigarette
holder), kulak-lık (headphones), çaydan-lık (tea pot), mezar-lık (graveyard), şeker-lik (a bowl in which candies are kept), çokevli-lik (polygamy),
tuz-luk (saltshaker), çocuk-luk (childhood), maskara-lık (farce, foolery),
soytarı-lık (clowning), dost-luk (friendship), düşman-lık (enmity).
[Cİ-LİK] allomorphs: [cilik, cılık, cülük, culuk, çilik, çılık, çülük, çuluk]
av-cılık (hunting), meyve-cilik (selling fruit), ön-cülük (leadership), yol-culuk
(traveling), aş-çılık (cooking), fal-cılık (fortune telling), tefe-cilik (usury),
çiçek-çilik (selling flowers), çif-çilik (farming), hava-cılık (aviation), balık-çılık
(fishing).
[CİK] allomorphs: [cik, cık,cük,

cuk, çik, çık, çük, çuk] (diminutive)

ev-cik (small house), kapı-cık (small door), köprü-cük (small bridge), kutucuk (small box), eşek-çik (small donkey), ağaç-çık (small tree), kadın-cık
(little woman).
[CEĞIZ] allomorphs: [ceğiz, cağız, çeğiz, çağız] (innocence)
kedi-ceğiz (innocent cat), kız-cağız (innocent girl), hayvan-cağız (innocent animal), köpek-çeğiz (innocent dog), kuş-çağız (innocent bird).
[CE] allomorphs: [ce, ca, çe, ça]
İngiliz-ce (English), Alman-ca (German), Türk-çe (Turkish), Rus-ça (Russian), İspanyol-ca (Spanish), Japon-ca (Japanese), Çin-ce (Chinese),
Arap-ça (Arabic), Fransız-ca (French), İtalyan-ca (Italian), Rum-ca (Greek)

MORPHEMES ATTACHED TO NOUN STEMS TO PRODUCE
ADJECTIVES

[Lİ] allomorphs: [li, lı, lü, lu]
ev-li (married), çocuk-lu (with children), şemsiye-li (with an umbrella), bahçe-li ev (house with a garden), şiyah ceket-li adam (the man in a black

24

coat), kır-mızı-lı kadın (the woman in red), görgü-lü (having good manners,
polite), çi-çek-li ağaç (a tree in blossom), yağmur-lu (rainy), kar-lı (snowy),
sis-li (foggy, misty), günes-li (sunny), bulut-lu (cloudy), tuz-lu (salty), at-lı
(man on horseback), istek-li (willing), becerik-li (skillful), çamur-lu (muddy),
hesap-lı (economical), saygı-lı (respectful), suç-lu (criminal), hata:-lı
(faulty), tat-lı (sweet), mayo-lu (in a bathing suit), süt-lü (with milk, milky),
paha-lı (expensive), taş kafa-lı (stone headed), Adana-lı (from Adana),
sürek-li (continuous), hiddet-li (outrageous), kıl-lı (hairy), bilinç-li
(intentional, conscious), zarar-lı (harmful), tehlike-li (dangerous), şüphe-li
(suspicious, suspect), yer-li (native), iki bacak-lı (two legged), kanat-lı
(winged), kaygı-lı (anxious), ümit-li (hopeful), gerek-li (necessary),
yetenek-li (talented), bağım-lı (addicted, dependent), silah-lı (armed), renkli (colored), kâr-lı (profitable), zehir-li (poisonous), denge-li (balanced),
neşe-li (joyful), ku-sur-lu (faulty), gürültü-lü (noisy), değer-li (precious),
gerek-li (necessary), düşünce-li (thoughtful), yürek-li (brave), ayrıntı-lı
(detailed), sorum-lu (responsible), mantık-lı (rational), güç-lü (strong),
örtü-lü (covered), his-li (sensitive), hırs-lı (ambitious), hız-lı (fast), tertip-li
(tidy), tuz-lu (salty), buz-lu (icy), çamur-lu (muddy), kir-li (dirty), pasak-lı
(untidy), korku-lu (frightening, scary), hak-lı (right, fair), kasıt-lı (intentional),
hesap-lı (economical), meme-li (mammal), tecrübe-li, deneyim-li
(experienced), falso-lu (erroneous), kasvet-li (gloomy, doleful), kuşku-lu
(dubious, suspicious), onur-lu, gurur-lu (proud), dayanık-lı (durable).

[SİZ] allomorphs: [siz, sız, süz, suz]
annes-siz (motherless), leke-siz (stainless), kaygı-sız (without anxiety),
korku-suz (fearless), istek-siz (unwilling), yağmur-suz (rainless), ağaç-sız
(treeless), defo-suz (flawless), uyku-suz (sleepless), bilinç-siz (unconscious), karar-sız (hesitant), sorum-suz (irresponsible), dikkat-siz (careless), amaç-sız (aimless), kalp-siz (heartless), yürek-siz (timid), neşe-siz
(neş*e*siz) (sad), ümit-siz, umut-suz (desperate, hopeless), taban-sız
(timid), saygı-sız (disrespectful), mantık-sız (irrational), temel-siz (unsound,
baseless), renk-siz (colorless), gerek-siz (unnecessary), bağım-sız (independent), perva:-sız (reckless), kafa-sız (stupid), sevgi-siz (loveless),
terbiye-siz (impolite, rude), görgü-süz (impolite), becerik-siz (incompetent), imkân-sız (impossible), karar-sız (hesitant), değer-siz (worthless),
ses-siz (silent), şeker-siz (without sugar), gerek-siz (unnecessary), düşünce-siz (thoughtless), sorum-suz (irresponsible), mesnet-siz (baseless),
tasa-sız (carefree), ahlâk-sız (immoral), yüz-süz (impudent), huy-suz (perverse), akıl-sız (foolish), dayanak-sız (baseless), dayanık-sız (not durable),
duygu-suz (senseless), kusur-suz (faultless), ta:lih-siz (unfortunate), kıymet-siz (worthless).
[SEL] allomorphs: [sel, sal]
bilim-sel (scientific), evren-sel (universal), deney-sel (experimental, empirical), yüzey-sel (superficial), duygu-sal (emotional, sensational), sanat-sal
(artistic), yapı-sal (structural), gelenek-sel (traditional), düşün-sel (mental),

25

tarih-sel (historical), tarihî (historic), kavram-sal (conceptual), kimya-sal
(chemical), fizik-sel (physical), anıt-sal (monumental), yaşam-sal (vital),
din-sel (religious), ulus-sal (u*lu*sal) (national), çevre-sel (environmental),
kalıt-sal (hereditary), onur-sal (honorary), bitki-sel (herbal), hayvan-sal
(zoological), tarım-sal (agricultural), us-sal (us*sal) (mental, rational), tanrısal (divine, celestial), yörünge-sel (orbital), kurum-sal (institutional, corporate), kamu-sal (public), küre-sel (global, spherical), kır-sal (rural), örgütsel (organizational), toplum-sal (social, common), belge-sel (documental),
kurgu-sal (fictional), ruh-sal (psychological), beden-sel (corporal).
MORPHEMES ATTACHED TO ADJECTIVE STEMS TO PRODUCE
NOUNS

[LİK] allomorphs: [lik, lık, lük, luk]
iyi-lik (favor), sıcak-lık (temperature), özgür-lük (freedom), uzun-luk
(length), geniş-lik (width), güzel-lik (beauty), çirkin-lik (ugliness), dürüstlük (honesty), aptal-lık (stupidity), sessiz-lik (silence), evli-lik (marriage),
bayağı-lık (meanness), iyimser-lik (optimism), kötümser-lik (pessimism),
uşak-lık (servitude), yalnız-lık (loneliness), misafirsever-lik (hospitality),
kahraman-lık (heroism), vatansever-lik (patriotism), kaba-lık (rudeness),
duygusal-lık (sensitivity), dost-luk (frienship), kepaze-lik (scandal), üretken-lik (productivity), küresel-lik (globalism), aşağılık kompleksi (inferiority complex), arsız-lık (impudence), geve-ze-lik (chattering), düşüncesiz-lik (inconsiderateness), mutsuz-luk (unhappiness), aç-lık (hunger,
starvation), güç-lük (difficulty), saydam-lık (transparency), utangaç-lık
(shyness), uzak-lık (distance), yakın-lık (closeness, sympathy), küstah-lık
(insolence), kurak-lık (drought), ürkek-lik (shyness), ser-sem-lik
(dizziness), hovarda-lık (debauchery), alışkan-lık (addiction).
MORPHEMES ATTACHED TO VERB STEMS TO PRODUCE NOUNS

[İ] allomorphs: [i, ı, ü, u]
diz-i (di*zi) (string, chain), yaz-ı (ya*zı) (script, text), ölç-ü (öl*çü) (measurement, size), koş-u (ko*şu) (run), duy-u (du*yu) (sense), gez-i (ge*zi) (trip),
aç-ı (a*çı) (angle), yap-ı (ya*pı) (building), tak-ı (ta*kı) (jewelry, jewels),
dürt-ü (dür*tü) (stimulus), tart-ı (tar*tı) (scales), art-ı (ar*tı) (plus), başar-ı
(ba*şa*rı) (success), kork-u (kor*ku) (fear), sor-u (so*ru) (question), ört-ü
(ör*tü) (any cloth covering), çat-ı (ça*tı) (framework), yet-i (ye*ti) (mental
power, faculty), yat-ı (ya*tı) (overnight stay), öl-ü (ö*lü) (corpse), göm-ü
(gö*mü) (treasure), kok-u (ko-ku) (scent, smell, aroma, perfume), böl-ü
(bö*lü) (slash mark), diz-i (di*zi) (serial, string, sequence).

[İM] allomorphs: [im, ım, üm, um]
seç-im (se*çim) (election), al-ım (a*lım) (purchase), öl-üm (ö*lüm) (death),
yık-ım (yı*kım) (disaster, demolition), yut-um (yu*dum) (gulp), ek-im

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(e*kim) (October), ak-ım (a*kım) (current), üret-im (ü*re*tim) (production),
yaşa-ım (ya*şam) (life), geliş-im (ge*li*şim) (improvement), karış-ım
(ka*rı*şım) (mixture), dönüş-üm (dö*nü*şüm) (transformation), çek-im
(çe*kim) (attraction), geril-im (ge*ri*lim) (tension), tasar-ım (ta*sa*rım)
(plan), kavra-ım (kav*ram) (concept), denkle-im (denk*lem) (equation),
ekle-im (ek*lem) (joint), tüket-im (tü*ke*tim) (consumption), yaklaş-ım
(yak*la*şım) (approach), benzeş-im (ben*ze*şim) (similarity, resemblance),
iletiş-im (i*le*ti*şim) (communication), biliş-im (bi*li*şim) (informatics), de/y/im (de*yim) (expression, idiom), say-ım (sa*yım) (census), giy-im
(gi*yim) (clothing), çöz-üm (çö*züm) (solution), kıy-ım (kı*yım) (massacre),
açıl-ım (a*çı*lım) (expansion), yatır-ım (ya*tı*rım) (investment), al-ım satım (a*lım sa*tım) (buying and selling, trade, commerce), giy-im (gi*yim)
(attire), salk-ım (sal*kım) (bunch), bir salkım üzüm (a bunch of grapes).

[İK] allomorphs: [ik, ık, ük, uk, ek, ak]
del-ik (de*lik) (hole), art-ık (ar*tık) (left over), öksür-ük (ök*sü*rük) (cough),
tükür-ük (tü*kü*rük) (spit, saliva), aksır-ık (ak*sı*rık) (sneeze), bulaş-ık
(bu*la*şık) (dirty dishes), kayna-ık (kay*nak) (source, spring, origin), belleik (bel*lek) (memory), yat-ak (ya*tak) (bed), kaç-ak (ka*çak) (escaped),
kes-ek (ke*sek) (a lump of earth), uç-ak (u*çak) (airplane), dur-ak (du*rak)
(stop, bus stop), tara-ık (ta*rak) (comb), yama-ık (ya*mak) (apprentice),
saç-ak (sa*çak) (fringe), döşe-ik (dö-şek) (mattress), kapa-ık (ka*-pak)
(lid), eş-ik (e*şik) (threshold), ölç-ek (öl*çek) (criterion, scale), dene-ik
(de*nek) (experimental subject, object or animal), tekerle-ik (te*ker*lek)
(wheel), dayan-ak (da*ya*nak) (support), kay-ak (ka*yak) (ski). The double
underlined vowels drop.

[Gİ] allomorphs: [gi, gı, gü, gu, ki, kı, kü, ku]
sev-gi (love, affection), çal-gı (music instrument), sür-gü (bolt), sor-gu
(interrogation), bas-kı (pressure), as-kı (hanger), ör-gü (knitting), gör-gü
(good manners), dol-gu (filling), ver-gi (tax), et-ki (impression), sar-gı (bandage), ser-gi (exhibition), ez-gi (melody), sez-gi (intuition), say-gı (respect),
yanıl-gı (mistake), vur-gu (accent, stress), kur-gu (abstract thoughts, speculation), yer-gi (satire), der-gi (periodical, magazine), yar-gı (judgment),
yaz-gı (fate, destiny), ol-gu (fact), duy-gu (sensation), iç-ki (alcoholic
beverage, drink), at-kı (scarf), et-ki (impression, stimulus), kat-kı (aid, help,
addi-tive), gör-gü (experience, good manners), kork-ku (fright) (The double
un-derlined "k" drops.), yet-ki (authority), coş-ku (excitement), tep-ki (response, reaction), al-gı (perception), sal-gı (secretion), tut-ku (passion), keski (chisel), tut-ku (ambition, passion). All the last syllables of the above
Turkish words are stressed

[İCİ] allomorphs: [ici, ıcı, ücü, ucu]
dinle-/y/ici (din*le*yi*ci) (listener), sat-ıcı (sa*tı*cı) (seller), yüz-ücü (yü*zü*cü) (swimmer), koş-ucu (ko*şu*cu) (runner), böl-ücü (bö*lü*cü) (separa-

27

tist), tara-/y/ıcı (ta*ra*yı*cı) (scanner), al-ıcı (a*lı*cı) (receiver), bak-ıcı
(ba*kı*cı) (companion), bebek bakıcısı (baby sitter), tut-ucu (tu*tu*cu)
(conservative).

[ECEK] allomorphs: [ecek, acak]
sil-ecek (si*le*cek) (wiper), gel-ecek (ge*le*cek) (future), aç-acak (a*ça*cak) (opener), çek-ecek (çe*ke*cek) (shoehorn), yak-acak (ya*ka*cak) (fuel).

[MEK] allomorphs: [mek, mak]
ye-mek (meal), çak-mak (lighter), ek-mek (bread), kay-mak (cream)

[ME] allomorphs: [me, ma]
dondur-ma (ice cream), dol-ma (green peppers, eggplants or marrows
stuffed with mince, rice, etc.), kavur-ma (fried pieces of meat), haşla-ma
(boiled meat), dene-me (essay), döv-me (tattoo), as-ma (vine), kaz-ma
(pickax). The last syllables of the above words are stressed.
[İK] allomorphs: [ik, ık, ük, uk]
kes-ik (ke*sik) (cut), çık-ık (çı*kık) (dislocated joint), yar-ık (ya*rık) (slash),
çiz- ik (çi*zik) (scratch), çürü-ük (çü*rük) (decay), sar-ık (sa*rık) (turban),
kaz-ık (ka*zık) (stake, unreasonably expensive), yırt-ık (yır*tık) (tear), del-ik
(de*lik) (hole).

[CE] allomorphs: [ce, ca]
düşün-ce (dü*şün*ce) (thought), eğlen-ce (eğ*len*ce) (entertainment),
bilme-ce (bil*me*ce) (riddle, word puzzle), düzme-ce (düz*me*ce) (lie,
fake), çekme-ce (çek*me*ce) (drawer), gülme-ce (gül*me*ce) (comedy).
MORPHEMES ATTACHED TO VERB STEMS TO PRODUCE
ADJECTIVES

[İCİ] allomorphs: [ici, ıcı, ücü, ucu]
del-ici (de*li*ci) (piercing), kal-ıcı (ka*lı*cı) (lasting), sars-ıcı (sar*sı*cı)
(shocking), yarat-ıcı (ya*ra*tı*cı) (creative), bulaş-ıcı (bu*la*şı*cı) (contagious), şaşırt-ıcı (şa*şır*tı*cı) (confusing), yak-ıcı (ya*kı*cı) (burning),
öğüt-ücü (ö*ğü*tü*cü) (grinding), tazele-/y/ici (ta*ze*le*yi*ci) (refreshing),
it-ici (i*ti*ci) (repulsive), aldat-ıcı (al*da*tı*cı) (deceptive), üz-ücü (ü*zü*cü)
(saddening), doyur-ucu (do*yu*ru*cu) (satisfying), geç-ici (ge*çi*ci)
(temporary), ez-ici çoğunluk (overwhelming majority), sat-ıcı (sa*tı*cı)
(salesman), yık-ıcı (yı*kı*cı) (destructive, devastating), koru-/y/ucu
(ko*ru*yu*cu) (protective), kır-ıcı (kı*rı*cı) (offensive).

28

[İK] allomorphs: [ik, ık, ük, uk]
aç-ık (a*çık) (open), kır-ık (kı*rık) (broken), bat-ık (ba*tık) (sunken), göç-ük
(gö*çük) (collapsed), del-ik (de*lik) (pierced, hole), ez-ik (e*zik) (mashed),
eğ-ik (e*ğik) (bent), çürü-ük (çü*rük) (decayed), art-ık (ar*tık) (left over),
kaç-ık (ka*çık) (silly), çatla-ık (çat*lak) (cracked), kaç-ak (ka*çak) (escaped). çek-ik (çe*kik) (slanting), çık-ık (çı*kık) (dislocated joint).
Note:The double underlined vowels drop and the last syllables are stressed.

[KİN] allomorphs: [gin, gın, gün, gun, kin, kın, kün, kun]
seç-kin (seç*kin) (exclusive, choice), kes-kin (sharp), şaş-kın (astonished),
iliş-kin (concerning, connected), sus-kun (silent), piş-kin (well done, impudent), et-kin (functional), ger-gin (tight), az-gın (fierce), düz-gün (smooth),
ol-gun (ripe, mature), sol-gun (faded), yay-gın (common), bit-kin (discouraged, depressed, exhausted), yor-gun (tired), bas-kın (unexpected attack
(noun), dominant), küs-kün (offended), geç-kin (overripe), dur-gun (stagnant), dol-gun (plump), öz-gün (original). All the last allomorphs of the
above words are stressed.

[ER] allomorphs: [er, ar, ir, ır, ür, ur]
çal-ar saat (alarm clock), ak-ar su (running water), gül-er yüz (smiling
face), koş-ar adım (running pace), uyu-ur gez-er (sleep walker).

[EN] allomorphs: [en, an]
koş-an (ko*şan) (running), sol-an (so*lan) (fading), çalş-an (ça*lı*şan)
(working), yürü-/y/en (yü*rü*/y/en) (walking), konuş-an (ko*nu*şan)
(talking), dilimle-/y/en (di*lim*li*yen) (slicing), kes-en (ke*sen) (cutting),
öpüş-en (ö*pü*şen) (kissing), bekle-/y/en (bek*le*yen) (waiting), art-an
(ar*tan) (increasing), geliş-en (ge*li*şen) (developing), dön-en (dö*nen)
(turning, circling), gülümse-/y/en (gü*lüm*se*yen) (smiling), bağla-/y/an)
(bağ*la*yan) (tying, connecting), bitme-/y/en (bit*me*yen) (unending).
Note: The above morpheme and its allomorphs are also used in transforming simple sentences into “determiner + noun” compounds. Therefore,
they are also inflectional suffixes.

[MİŞ] allomorphs: [miş, mış, müş, muş]
sol-muş (faded), değiş-miş (changed), karış-mış (mixed), beyazlaş-mış
(whitened), bağlan-mış (tied, connected), ertelen-miş (postponed), kızartılmış (fried), tasarlan-mış (planned), yıkan-mış (washed), geliştiril-miş
(improved), düğüm-len-miş (knotted), aydınlan-mış (enlightened), zorlanmış (forced), boşan-mış (divorced), unutul-muş (forgotten), örül-müş
(knitted), kızar-mış (fried, reddened), üretil-miş (produced), bayıl-mış,

29

(fainted), unutulma-mış (unforgotten), kayna-mış (boiled), donmuş (frozen).
Note: The allomorphs of the morpheme [MIŞ] are stressed. This morpheme
is also used as an inflectional morpheme.

[SEL] allomorphs: [sel, sal]
gör-sel (visual), uy-sal (complaisant), düşün-sel (mental), işit-sel (audial).
MORPHEMES ATTACHED TO NOUN STEMS TO PRODUCE VERBS

[LE] allomorphs: [le, la]
el-le (el*le) (touch), bağ-la (bağ*la) (tie), teker-le (te*ker*le) (roll), göz-le
(göz*le) (observe), kutu-la (ku*tu*la) (put in boxes), damga-la (damga-la)
(stamp), tuz-la (tuz*la) (salt), leke-le (le*ke*le) (stain), tekme-le (tek*me*le)
(kick), sür-gü-le (sür*gü*le) (bolt), baş-la (baş*la) (begin, start), düzen-le
(dü*-zen*le) (arrange), yağ-la (yağ*la) (lubricate, oil), taş-la (taş*la) (throw
stones), yel-le (yel*le) (fan), denge-le (den*ge*le) (balance), sergi-le
(ser*gi*le) (exhibit), bağış-la (forgive), su-la (water), ka-şık-la (spoon into
greedily), kazık-la (cheat), yargı-la (judge), kalbur-la (sift), ilaç-la (apply
pesticide), ak-la (acquit), köstek-le (hamper). All the [le, la] allomorphs are
stressed.
MORPHEMES ATTACHED TO ADJECTIVE STEMS TO PRODUCE
VERBS

[İR] allomorphs: [ir, ır, er,ar]
deli-ir (de*lir) (get mad), sarı-ar (sa*rar) (turn yellow), kara-ır (ka*rar)
(blacken, darken, or get dark), mor-ar (mo*rar) (get, turn purple).
Note: The double underlined vowels drop.

[LEŞ] allomorphs: [leş, laş]
güzel-leş (get beautiful), sık-laş (get oftener, get tighter), ağır-laş (get
heavier), sağır-laş (get deaf), derin-leş (deepen, get deeper), kaba-laş (get
ruder), yeşil-leş, yeşil-len (turn green), Some adjectives like “kırmızı” may
be either “kırmızılaş” or “kızar” (get, turn red), “kısa” becomes “kısal”
(get shorter), “uzun” becomes “uza” (get longer).
Examples: Günler kısalıyor. Days are getting shorter. Günler uzuyor. (*not
uzayor) Days are getting longer.
In Turkish, “make something + adjective” "Make it shorter." is expressed in
an adjective + morpheme mixture which is too long to analyze in detail.
Some examples may explain them easily:

30

Uzun  uzat (u*zat) “Onu uzat.” (Make it longer.); kısa  kısalt (kı*salt)
“Onu kısalt.” (Make it shorter.); büyük  büyüt (bü*yüt) “Onu büyüt.” (Make
it larger.); Küçük küçült (kü*çült) “Onu küçült.” (Make it smaller.); kara 
karart (ka*rart) “Onu karart.” (Make it darker.); derin  derinleştir
(de*rin*leş*tir) “Onu derinleştir.” (Make it deeper.)
“I made him work”, “I had him work”, “I had the work done” and “I got
him to do the work” types of sentences will be explained in the following
chapters.
USING ADJECTIVES AS ADVERBS
Nearly all adjectives in Turkish can be used as adverbs without changing
their forms, for example:
O iyi bir kızdır. (adjective) She is a good girl. (adjective)
O iyi yüzer. (adverb) She swims well. (adverb)
Bu yavaş bir arabadır. (adjective) This is a slow car.(adjective)
Bu araba yavaş gider. (adverb) This car goes slowly. (adverb)
O güzel bir kızdır. (adjective) She is a beautiful girl. (adjective)
O güzel şarkı söyler. (adverb) She sings beautifully. (adverb)
As it is seen in the examples above, no “ly” kind of suffix is attached to
Turkish adjectives when they are used adverbially. However, when it is
necessary to stress the adverb, it may be repeated:
O yavaş yavaş yürüyor. He is walking slowly.
Biz hızlı hızlı yürüdük. We walked quickly.
Onlar tenbel tembel oturuyorlar. They are sitting lazily.
Arsız arsız gülüyordu. He was grinning impudently.
Güzel güzel oynayın. Play like good children. Don’t be mischievous.
Onları sık sık ziyaret ettim. I visited them frequently.
Kara kara düşünüyordu. He was thinking hopelessly.
Derin derin düşündü. He thought deeply.
Avaz avaz bağırdı. She screamed.
Likewise, some words produced out of imitated sounds are repeated and
used in Turkish sentences as adverbs of manner, which do not exist in
English. Some of these expressions and their meanings are given in the following sentences:
Şakır şakır yağmur yağıyor.
(şa*kır / şa*kır / yağ*mur / ya*ğı*yor↷)
It is raining cats and dogs.

31

Mışıl mışıl uyuyor.
(mı*şıl / mı*şıl / u*yu*yor↷)
She is sleeping soundly.
Bebek tıpış tıpış yürüyor.
(be*bek / tı*pış / tı*pış / yü*rü*yor↷)
The baby is toddling.
Kıkır kıkır gülüyor.
(kı*kır / kı*kır / gü*lü*yor↷)
She is giggling.
Kara kara düşünüyor.
(ka*ra / ka*ra / dü*şü*nü*yor↷)
He is thinking gloomily,
Adamlar harıl harıl çalışıyorlardı.
(a*dam*lar / ha*rıl / ha*rıl /ça*lı*şı*yor*lar*dı↷)
The men were working like hell.
Boğaz Köprüsü’nün ışıkları geceleyin ışıl ışıl ışıldar.
(bo*ğaz / köp*rü*sü*nün / ı*şık*la*rı / ge*ce*le*yin / ı*şıl / ı*şıl / ı*şıl*dar ↷)
The lights of the Bosphorus Bridge glitter at night.
Beni şapır şupur öpmesinden hoşlanmıyorum.
(be*ni / şa*pur / şu*pur / öp*me*sin*den / hoş*lan*mı*yo*rum ↷)
I don’t like her kissing me noisily.
Televizyon seyrederken boyuna çıtır çıtır patates cipsi yiyor.
(te*le*viz*yon / sey*re*der*ken / bo*yu*na / pa*ta*tes / cip*si / yi*yor↷)
He is always crunching potato chips while watching television.
Dün eve dönerken sırıl sıklam oldum.
(dün / e*ve / dö*ner*ken / sı*rıl / sık*lam / ol*dum↷)
I got wet through while I was coming back home yesterday.
Bu sabah kalktığımda lapa lapa kar yağıyordu.
(dün / sa*bah / kalk*tı*ğım*da / lâ*pa / lâ*pa / kar / ya*ğı*yor*du↷)
When I woke up this morning it was snowing in large flakes.
Hâlâ horul horul uyuyor.
(ha:*lâ: / ho*rul / ho*rul / u*yu*yor ↷)
He is still sleeping like a top..
Kuşlar cıvıl cıvıl ötüyordu.
(kuş*lar / cı*vıl / cı*vıl / ö*tü*yor*du↷)
The birds were twittering.

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Hapır hupur yiyordu.
(ha*pır / hu*pur / yi*yor*du↷)
He was eating greedily.
Takır takır Türkçe konuşuyor.
(tak*kır / ta*kır / türk*çe / ko*nu*şu*yor↷)
He speaks Turkish fluently.
Hırsız sinsi sinsi odama girdi.
(hır*sız / sin*si / sin*si / o*da*ma / gir*di↷)
The thief sneaked into my room.
MORPHEMES ATTACHED TO NOUN STEMS TO PRODUCE ADVERBS
“İle” postposition (English preposition) is generally shortened and attached
to nouns as [le, la] allomorphs to produce adverbs in Turkish. The
equivalents of these adverbs are represented by some prepositions used
before nouns or [ly] suffixes attached to adjectives in English. The examples
are as follows:

[LE] allomorphs: [le, la]
uçak-la (u*çak*la) (by airplane), otobüs-le (o*to*büs*le) (by bus), say-gı/y/la (say*gıy*la) (with respect), hiddet-le (hid*det*le) (in rage), sopa/y/-la
(so*pay*la) (with a stick), at-la (at*la) (on horseback), acele/y/-le (a*ce*ley*le) (in a hurry), dikkat-le (dik*kat*le) (carefully, with care), (sa*bır*la)
(patiently, with patience), inat-la (obstinately), korku/y/-la (fearfully), iştahla (greedily), hız-la (quickly), kaygı-/y/la (with anxiety, anxiously), gurur-la
(proudly), acı/y/-la (painfully, in pain), cesa:ret-le (bravely), neşe/y/-le
(cheerfully), sen(in)-le (with you), ben(im)-le (with me), onun-la (with him /
her), biz(im)-le (with us), onlar-la (with them), Jack’-le (with Jack), kılıç-la
(with a sword), güçlük-le (with difficulty), kolaylık-la (easily), yanlışlık-la (by
mistake), mürekkep-le (in ink), kurşun ka-lem-le (in pencil), bir kurşun kalem-le (with a pencil), genellik-le (generally), dürüstlük- le (honestly), kolaylık-la (easily, with ease), istek-le (willingly), hışım-la (furiously, angrily),
özen-le (carefully), özlem-le (longingly), tören-le (with ceremony).
The stresses are on the syllables preceding the [le, la] allomorphs.

INFLECTIONAL MORPHEMES
Çekim Ekleri
The inflectional morphemes can also be defined as functional morphemes
because they are used in weaving sentence structures as well as adding
several fundamental concepts to verb stems such as time, duration, negation, possibility, certainty, inference, obligation, ability, inability, interrogation, nominalization, passivization, cooperation, etc.

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Besides the verb stems, nouns, pronouns, noun compounds and infinitives can take “possessor + possessed” and [İ], [E], [DE], [DEN] morphemes to furnish these words with the concepts of the “the” definite article,
and “to”, “in, at, on”, or “from” prepositions of the English language.
THE INFLECTIONAL MORPHEMES ATTACHED TO NOUNS
The Defining [İ] Morpheme and its Allomorphs [i, ı, ü, u]
This morpheme functions in Turkish like the definite article “the” in English,
but it is only used when the noun is in the object position in a sentence:
Avcı tavşan-ı gördü. The hunter saw the rabbit.
As it is seen in the above English sentence, both “hunter” and “rabbit” have
definite articles preceding them. Yet, in the Turkish sentence, only the word
“tavşan” has a defining morpheme attached to it. This example shows us
that the defining [İ] morpheme can only be used when the definite nouns or
pronouns are in the object position. When a noun is in the subject position,
and it is defined, it does not need a defining morpheme [İ] attached to it.
When the monosyllabic nouns ending with consonants are attached to the
allomorphs of [İ], “[i, ı, ü, u]”, their last phonemes do not change:
ek-i (e*ki) (the suffix); yük-ü (yü*kü) (the load); at-ı (a*tı) (the horse); ip-i
(i*pi) (the rope); çek-i (çe-ki) (the check); iç-i (i*çi) (the inside); ot-u (o*tu)
(the grass); kök-ü (kö*kü) (the root); göç-ü (gö*çü) (the migration); süt-ü
(sü*tü) (the milk); aşk-ı (aş*kı) (the love); ak-ı (a*kı) (the white); üst-ü
(üs*tü) (the upper side); ad-ı (a*dı) (the name); hap-ı (ha*pı) (the pill); it-i
(i*ti) (the dog); kürk-ü (kür*kü) (the fur); çay-ı (ça*yı) (the tea); sap-ı (sa*pı);
et-i (e*ti); saç-ı (sa*çı); ek-i (e*ki); yük-ü (yü*kü); aç-ı (a*çı); tok-u (to*ku);
Türk-ü (Tür*kü)
There are, however, some exceptions to the above rule: kap-ı (ka*bı) (the
cover); gök-ü (gö*ğü) (the sky); dert-i (der*di) (the trouble); denk-i (den*gi)
(the equal); renk-i (ren*gi) (the color); tat-ı (ta*dı) (the taste).
If the nouns that have more than one syllable end with /p/, /k/, /ç/ morphemes, these unvoiced consonants change into their voiced forms /b/, /ğ/,
and /c/ when they take the [i, ı, ü, u] allomorphs. These allomorphs are also
used attached to the third person possessed nouns:
çorap-ı (ço*ra*bı) (the sock, his sock); şarap-ı (şa*ra*bı) (the wine, his
wine); dolap-ı (do*la*bı) (the cupboard, her cupboard); tarak-ı (ta*ra*ğı)
(the comb, her comb); eşek-i (e*şe*ği) (the donkey, his donkey); ekmek-i
(ek*me*ği) (the bread, his bread); yüzük-ü (yü*zü*ğü) (the ring, her ring);
terlik-i (ter*li*ği) (the slipper, her slipper); tüfek-i (tü*fe*ği) (the gun, his

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gun); köpek-i (kö*pe*ği) (the dog, her dog); bebek-i (be*be*ği) (the baby,
her baby); yemek-i (ye*me*ği) (the meal, his meal); kabak-ı (ka*ba*ğı) (the
marrow); gözlük-ü (göz*lü*ğü) (the eyeglasses); parmak-ı (par*ma*ğı) (the
finger); çiçek-i (çi*çe*ği) (the flower); böcek-i (bö*ce*ği) (the insect);
yasak-ı (ya*sa*ğı) (the prohibition); tarak-ı (ta*ra*ğı) (the comb); küllük-ü
(kül*lü*ğü) (the ashtray); bacak-ı (ba*ca*ğı) (the leg); bıçak-ı (bı*ça*ğı) (the
knife); bardak-ı (bar*da*ğı) (the glass); delik-i (de*li*ği) (the hole); çakmak-ı (çak*ma*ğı) (the lighter); ağaç-ı (a*ğa*cı) (the tree); büyüteç-i
(bü*yü*te*ci) (the magnifier); dönemeç-i (dö*ne*me*ci) (the corner).
The polysyllabic nouns that end with the /t/ phonemes do not change them
when they are suffixed with the allomorphs of the phoneme [İ]:
saat-i (sa*a*ti) (the watch or his watch); sepet-i (se*pe*ti) (the basket or his
basket); demet-i (de*me*ti) (the bunch or his bunch); kasket-i (kas*ke*ti)
(the cap or his cap); surat-ı (su*ra*tı) (the face or his face).
The polysyllabic nouns that end with consonants take the allomorphs of [İ]
following the vowel harmony rules:
Okul-u (o*ku*lu) (the school or his school), tavan-ı (ta*va*nı) (the ceiling or
its ceiling), orman-ı (or*ma*nı) (the forest or his forest), kalem-i (ka*le*mi),
defter-i (def*te*ri) (the notebook or his notebook), pantolon-u (pan*to*lo*nu) (the trousers or his trousers).
The polysyllabic nouns that end with vowels take the /y/ glides together with
the allomorphs of the morpheme [İ]:
araba-/y/ı (a*ra*ba*yı) (the car); pencere-/y/i (pen*ce*re*yi) (the window);
kahve-/y/i (kah*ve*yi) (the coffee); testi-/y/i (tes*ti*yi) (the jug); fare-/y/i
(fa:*re*yi) (the mouse); kedi/y/i (ke*di*yi) (the cat); torba-/y/ı (tor*ba*yı)
(the sack); elma/y/ı (el*ma*yı) (the apple); kasaba-/y/ı (ka*sa*ba*yı) (the
town); öykü-/y/ü (öy*kü*yü) (the story); salata-/y/ı (sa*la*ta*yı) (the salad);
martı-/y/ı (mar*tı*yı) (the seagull); süpürge-/y/i (sü*pür*ge*yi) (the broom);
su-/y/u (su*yu) (the water); sene-/y/i (se*ne*yi) (the year); halı-/y/ı (ha*lı*yı) (the carpet); kamera-/y/ı (ka*me*ra*yı) (the camera); havlu-/y/u
(hav*lu*yu) (the towel); duygu-/y/u (duy*gu*yu) (the feeling); duyu-/y/u
(du*yu*yu) (the sense); poğaça-/y/ı (po*ğa*ça*yı) (a kind of pastry).
Note: When the third person possessed allomorphs [i, ı, ü, u] are attached to
the nouns ending with consonants, they take one of these allomorphs. But
when they end with vowels, they take the same allomorphs together with the
glide /s/: “onun okul-u”, “onun masal-ı”, “onun kuş-u”, “onun yük-ü”; “onun
giysi-/s/i, “onun hala-/s/ı”, “onun kale-/s/i”, “onun köşe-/s/i”, “onun çene-/s/i”.
When the pronouns are considered, however, Turkish and English objective
pronouns act differently from one another. In English, the pronouns “me“
“you”, “him”, “her”, “it”, “us”, ”them”; and proper nouns, “Jack”, “Mary" and

35

"Mehmet” are never used with defining or non-defining articles, but in Turkish, contrary to English, both pronouns such as “ben-i”,“sen-i”,“o-/n/u”, “biz-i”,
“siz-i”, “onlar-ı”, and proper nouns such as “Jack’i”,“Ahmet’i”, “Mary’-/y/i” are
all used with the allomorphs of [İ] attached to them when they are used in
the object position. Common nouns, however, can be used with nondefining articles, such as; “Ben dün bahçede bir tavşan gördüm” “I saw a
rabbit in the garden yesterday.”
Turkish pronouns “ben”, “sen”, “o”, “biz”, “siz”, “onlar”; proper nouns, such
as “Jack”, “George”, “Ahmet”, “Mehmet”; and common nouns, “avcı”, “balık“,
“avcılar”, “balıklar”, “çocuk”, “çocuklar” are never used with defining [i, ı, ü, u]
allomorphs when they are in the subject position. However, in English,
common nouns such as “the hunter”, “the hunters”, “the boy”, “the boys”,
etc.” can all be used with definite articles when they are in the subject position. The indefinite articles like "bir" (a, an) and "bazı" (some) are used as
they are used in English. For instance, “Bir avcı ormanda bir tavşan gördü.”
“A hunter saw a rabbit in the forest.” Compare the following sentences:
O ben-i gördü. She saw me.
Ben onlar-ı gördüm. I saw them.
Biz Jack’-i gördük. We saw Jack.
Avcı tavşan-ı gördü. The hunter saw the rabbit.
Çocuklar geldi. The children have arrived.
The indefinite articles, such as the ones in the following examples, “bir avcı”, “tüm avcılar”, “bazı avcılar” are the equivalents of “a hunter”, “all hunters”, and “some hunters” respectively. “Avcılar-dan bazı-lar-ı”, “bazı-mız”,
“bazı-lar-ı-mız”, “bazı-lar-ı-nız”, “bazı-lar-ı” are the equivalents of “some
of the hunters”, “some of us”, “some of you” and “some of them”.
As in all suffixes, one of the [i, ı, ü, u] allomorphs are attached to definite
nouns or pronouns following the vowel harmony rules when they are in the
object position:
ev-i (e*vi) (the house); et-i (e*ti) (the meat); arslan-ı (ars*la*nı) (the lion);
okul-u (o*ku*lu) (the school); telefon-u (te*le*fo*nu) (the telephone); televizyon-u (te*le*viz*yo*nu) (the television); ben-i (be*ni) (me); sen-i (se*ni)
(you); o-/n/u (o*nu) (him, her, it); biz-i (bi*zi) (us); siz-i (si*zi) (you); o/n/lar-ı (on*la*rı) (them), tüm avcılar-ı (tüm /av*cı*la*rı) (all the hunters),
bazılarımız (ba*zı*la*rı*mız) (some of us), bazılarımız-ı (ba*zı*la*rı*mı*zı)
(some of us), hepimiz (he*pi*miz) (all of us), hepimiz-i (he*pi*mi*zi) (all
of us), hepiniz (he*pi*niz) (all of you), hepiniz-i (he*pi*ni*zi) (all of you),
bazı-lar-ı (ba:*zı*la*rı) (some of them), bazıları-/n/ı (ba:*zı*la*rı*nı) (some
of them), kim-i (ki*mi) (who, whom). If noticed, some English expressions
are the same when they are in the subject or in the object position:
Some of us did not understand the lesson. Bazılarımız dersi anlamadı.

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The teacher wanted to see some of us. Öğretmen bazılarımız-ı görmek istedi.
All of us were eager to go to the concert. Hepimiz konsere gitmeye istekliydik.
The teacher punished all of us. Öğretmen hepimiz-i cezalandırdı.
Consider and compare the Turkish sentences with the English ones:
Bazı öğrenciler dün okula gelmedi.
(ba: *zı / öğ*ren*ci*ler / dün / o*ku*la / gel*me*di↷)
Some students didn’t come to school yesterday.
Öğrencilerden bazıları dün okula gelmedi.
(öğ*ren*ci*ler*den / ba:*zı*la*rı / dün / o*ku*la / gel*me*di↷)
Some of the students didn’t come to school yesterday.
Öğretmen öğrencilerden bazıları-/n/ı görmek istedi.
(öğ*ret*men ~/ öğ*ren*ci*ler*den / ba:*zı*la*rı*nı / gör*mek / is*te*di↷)
The teacher wanted to see some of the students.
Öğretmen, bazılarımız-ı görmek istedi.
(öğ*ret*men~ / ba:*zı*la*rı*mı*zı / gör*mek / is*te*di↷)
The teacher wanted to see some of us.
.
Note: The (~) sign shows a sustained juncture (duraklama aralığı) in a
sentence. The syllables printed in bold type show the primarily stressed
syllables, and the syllables printed in italics show the secondarily stressed
ones. The primarily stressed syllables are far more important for the learners of Turkish. Therefore, they may ignore the secondarily stressed syllables
until they reach an advanced level.
If a noun stem or an infinitive ends with a vowel, the /y/ glide is inserted
between the vowel and the allomorphs of the morpheme [İ] to maintain the
harmonious link between the successive vowels:
araba-/y/ı, çanta-/y/ı, testi-/y/i, kaya-/y/ı, türkü-/y/ü, konuşma-/y/ı,
bekleme-/y/i, uçma-/y/ı, sözleşme-/y/i, sevilme-/y/i, tartışma-/y/ı, ağlama/y/ı
If a noun stem ends with /k/, it changes into its voiced counterpart /ğ/ when it
is attached to one of the allomorphs of the morpheme [İ]:
tüfek-i (tü*fe*ği) (the gun); köpek-i (kö*pe*ği) (the dog); bebek-i (be*be*ği)
(the baby); eşek-i (e*şe*ği) (the donkey); yemek-i (ye*me*ği) (the meal);
ka-bak-ı (ka*ba*ğı) (the marrow); gözlük-ü (göz*lü*ğü) (the eyeglasses);
parmak-ı (par*ma*ğı) (the finger); çiçek-i (çi*çe*ği) (the flower); böcek-i
(bö*ce*ği) (the insect); yasak-ı (ya*sa*ğı) (the prohibition); tarak-ı (ta*ra*ğı)
(the comb); ek-mek-i (ek*me*ği) (the bread); küllük-ü (kül*lü*ğü) (the ashtray); bacak-ı (ba*ca*ğı) (the leg); bıçak-ı (bı*ça*ğı) (the knife); bardak-ı
(bar*da*ğı) (the glass); delik-i (de*li*ği) (the hole); çak-mak-ı (çak*ma*ğı)

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(the lighter); yüzük-ü (yü*zü*ğü) (the ring); kaşık-ı (ka*şı*ğı) (the spoon);
çocuk-u (ço*cu*ğu) (the child)
The noun stems ending with /p, t, ç/ phonemes also change into their voiced
counterparts /b, d, c/ respectively:
kebap-ı (ke*ba*bı) (the kebap); kasap-ı (ka*sa*bı) (the butcher); ağaç-ı (a*
ğa*cı) (the tree); öğüt-ü (ö*ğü*dü) (the advice); çorap-ı (ço*ra*bı) (the
sock); sebep-i (se*be*bi) (the reason)
However, most nouns ending with /t/ phonemes do not change:
saat-i (sa*a*ti) (the watch); sanat-ı (san*a*tı) (the art); hayat-ı (ha*ya:*tı)
(the life); demet-i (de*me*ti) (the bunch); kabahat-i (ka*ba*ha*ti) (the fault);
sepet-i (se*pe*ti) (the basket)
Although some borrowed words do not follow the Turkish harmony rules,
the allomorphs of morphemes are attached to their last syllables in accordance with the usual harmony rules:
kanun-u (ka:*nu:*nu); ruhum-u (ru:*hu*mu); usul-ü (u*su:*lü); vicdan-ı
(vic*da:*nı); ahbap-ı (ah*ba:*bı); kitap-ı (ki*ta*bı); kaza-/y/ı (ka*za:*yı)

[E], [DE], [DEN] MORPHEMES
The [E], [DE], [DEN] morphemes are attached to noun stems, pronouns,
infinitives and noun compounds. The English equivalents of these morphemes are different prepositions, but sometimes no prepositions are used
as those in the following examples. When these morphemes are attached to
nouns, pronouns, infinitives, noun compounds and nominalized sentences,
they function as adverbs. These adverbs are the “answers” to the following
questions, which are some of the fundamental language concepts of the universal grammar.
Nere-/y/e? (where?), Nere/y/e gitti? (Where did he go?), Okul-a. (To
school.) Nere-de? (Where?), O nere-de? (Where is he?) Okul-da. (In
school.) Nere-den? (From where?), O nere-den geliyor? Okul-dan. (From
where is he coming? (From school.)
As it is seen in the examples above, the [E], [DE], and [DEN] morphemes
follow nouns contrary to English prepositions, therefore, they can be called
postpositional allomorphs as all the suffixes of the Turkish language.
Okul-a gitti. “noun - [a]” (noun-morpheme)
Adverb

He went to school. “to + noun” (preposition + noun)
adverb

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[E] allomorphs: [e, a]
The English equivalents of this morpheme are generally "to" or "at", but they
may differ according to different verbs of the English language. When Turkish nouns ending with vowels are attached to [e, a] allomorphs, they take
/y/ glides, but when compounds ending with vowels are suffixed with them,
they take /n/ glides to maintain the harmony of the vowel link.
However, there is an important fact to keep in mind. While some English
verbs are transitive, which take direct objects; the equivalents of the same
verbs in Turkish are intransitive, which may take adverbs. Such verbs are
explained in parentheses:
Jack okul-a gitti.
(jack / o*ku*la / git*ti↷)
Jack went to school.
Ahmet ev-e geldi.
(ah*met / e*ve / gel*di↷)
Ahmet came home. (No preposition is used in English.)
Onu biz-e ver.
(o*nu / bi*ze / ver↷)
Give it to us.
Onu bana ver.
(o*nu / ba*na / ver↷)
Give it to me.
(As an exception, instead of *(ben-e), "bana" is used.)
Onu bura-/y/a getir.
(o*nu / bu*ra*ya / ge*tir↷)
Bring it here. (No preposition is used in English.)
Onu bahçe-/y/e götür.
(o*nu / bah*çe*ye / gö*tür↷)
Take it to the garden.
Onu ora-/y/a götür.
(o*nu / o*ra*ya / gö*tür↷)
Take it there. (No preposition is used in English.)
Onu bana getir.
(o*nu / ba*na / ge*tir↷)
Bring it to me.

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Onlar okul-a koştular.
(on*lar / o*ku*la / koş*tu*lar↷)
They ran to school.
Ahmet vazoyu masa-/y/a koydu.
(ah*met / va*zo*yu / ma*sa*ya / koy*du↷)
Ahmet put the vase on the table.
O-/n/u masa-/n/ın üstü-/n/e koy.
(o*nu~ / ma*sa*nın / üs*tü*ne / koy↷)
Put it on the table.
Jack'le George otobüs durağı-/n/a koştular. (A noun compound is used.)
(jack*le / george~/ o*to*büs / du*ra*ğı*na / koş*tu*lar↷)
Jack and George ran to the bus stop.
Öğretmen bana baktı.
(öğ*ret*men / ba*na / bak*tı↷)
The teacher looked at me.
Jack topu bana attı.
(jack~ / to*pu / ba*na / at*tı↷)
Jack threw the ball to me.
Jack kedi-/y/e bir taş attı.
(jack / ke*di*ye / bir / taş / at*tı↷)
Jack threw a stone at the cat.
Jack, Mary’/n/in kedi-/s/i/-/n/e bir taş attı.
(jack~ / mary*nin / ke*di*si*ne / bir / taş / at*tı↷)
Jack threw a stone at Mary’s cat.
Öğretmen biz-e kızdı.
(öğ*ret*men / bi*ze / kız*dı↷)
The teacher got angry with us.
O bana âşık. (“bana” is used instead of *”ben-e”
(o / ba*na / a:*şık↷)
She is in love with me.
Biz Allah'a inanırız.
(biz / al*la:*ha / i*na*nı*rız↷)
We believe in God.
Sana güveniyorum.
(sa*na / gü*ve*ni*yo*rum↷) I trust you.
("sana" is used instead of *"sen-e".)

40

O bana akıl verdi. (“Ver” is an intransitive verb in Turkish.)
(o / ba*na / a*kıl / ver*di↷)
He advised me. (“Advise” is transitive, so it does not need a preposition.)
O bana cevap vermedi.
( o / ba*na / ce*vap / ver*me*di↷)
He didn't answer me. He didn’t reply to me.
Biz şehir-e yaklaştık. (“Yaklaş” is intransitive in Turkish)
(biz / şeh*re / yak*laş*tık↷)
We approached the city. (“Approach” is transitive, so it does not need a
preposition.)
Düşman biz-e saldırdı. (“Saldır” is an intransitive verb.)
(düş*man / bi*ze / sal*dır*dı↷)
The enemy attacked us. (“Attack” is transitive, so no preposition is needed.)
Onlar dağ-a tırmandılar. (“Tırman” is intransitive in Turkish.)
(on*lar / da*ğa / tır*man*dı*lar↷)
They climbed the mountain. (“Climb” is transitive in English.)
Bir avukat-a danış. (“Danış” is intransitive in Turkish.)
(bir / a*vu*ka*ta / da*nış↷)
Consult a lawyer. (“Consult” is transitive in English.)
İşi tamamlama-/y/a karar verdiler.
(i*şi / ta*mam*la*ma*ya / ka*rar / ver*di*ler↷)
They decided to complete the work.
Deniz-e daldı.
(de*ni*ze / dal*dı↷)
He dived into the sea.
Onu bana açıkla.
(o*nu / ba*na / a*çık*la↷)
Explain it to me.
Onu bana tasvir et.
(o*nu / ba*na / tas*vi:*ret↷)
Describe it to me.
Ben oğlum-a yüzme öğrettim. (“Öğret” is intransitive in Turkish.)
(ben / oğ*lu*ma / yüz*me / öğ*ret*tim↷)
I taught my son to swim. (“Teach” is transitive in English.)

41

O ben-i tekmeledi.
(be*ni / tek*me*le*di↷)
He kicked me.
Köpek küçük kız-a saldırdı.
(kö*pek / kü*çük / kı*za / sal*dır*dı↷)
The dog rushed at the little girl.
Köpek, küçük kız-ın bacağı-/n/-ı ısırdı.
(kö*pek~ / kü*çük / kı*zın / ba*ca*ğı*nı / ı*sır*dı↷)
The dog bit the little girl’s leg.
Avcı kaplan-a ateş etti.
(av*cı / kap*la*na / a*teş / et*ti↷)
The hunter shot at the tiger.
Avcı kaplan-ı vurdu.
(av*cı / kap*la*nı / vur*du↷)
The hunter shot the tiger.
Annem bana bağırdı (beni azarladı).
(an*nem / ba*na / ba*ğır*dı↷)
Mother shouted at me.
Babam bana "Dikkatli ol!" diye bağırdı.
(ba*bam / ba*na / dik*kat*li / ol↷ / di*ye / ba*ğır*dı↷)
"Be careful!" father shouted to me.
Trafik Polisi sürücüler-e durmaları için işaret etti. (Turkish intransitive)
(tra*fik / po*li*si / sü*rü*cü*le*re / dur*ma*la*rı / i*çin / i*şa:*ret / et*ti↷)
The traffic police officer signaled the drivers to stop. (English transitive)
Çocuklar koşma-/y/a başladı.
(ço*cuk*lar / koş*ma*ya / baş*la*dı↷)
The children started running (to run).
O biz-e dün telefon etti. (Turkish intransitive)
(o / bi*ze / dün / te*le*fon / et*ti↷)
He telephoned us yesterday. (English transitive)
Jack bana kızdı.
(jack / ba*na / kız*dı↷)
Jack got angry with me.
O bana güldü (Benimle alay etti.)
(o / ba*na / gül*dü↷)
She laughed at me.

42

Sana katılıyorum.
(sa*na / ka*tı*lı*yo*rum↷)
I agree with you.
Onlar dokuzda ev-e vardılar.
(on*lar / sa*at / do*kuz*da / e*ve / var*dı*lar↷)
They arrived home at nine. (No preposition)
Onlar, zamanında uçak alanı-/n/a vardılar.
(on*lar ~/ za*ma:*nın*da / u*çak / a*la*nı*na / var*dı*lar↷)
They arrived at the airport in time.
Erken kalkma-/y/a alışkınım.
(er*ken / kalk*ma*ya / a*lış*kı*nım↷)
I am accustomed to getting up early
Çocukları-/n/a düşkündür.
(ço*cuk*la*rı*na / düş*kün*dür↷)
She is fond of her children. (“çocuklar-ı” is the second part of a noun compound: “kendi çocuklar-ı”)
Onlar-a yardım etme-/y/e karar verdik.
(on*la*ra / yar*dım / et*me*ye / ka*rar / ver*dik↷)
We decided to help them.
Sigara içmem-e itiraz eder misin?
(si*ga*ra / iç*me*me / i:*ti*ra:z / e*der / mi*sin↷)
Do you object to my smoking?
Paranı gereksiz şeyler-e harcama.
(pa*ra*nı / ge*rek*siz / şey*le*re / har*ca*ma↷)
Don't spend your money on unnecessary things.
Cumhuriyetçiler-e oy verdi.
(cum*hu:*ri*yet*çi*le*re / oy / ver*di↷)
He voted for the Republicans.
Kazayı yaya-/n/ın üst-ü-/n/e attı.
(ka*za:*yı~ / ya*ya*nın / üs*tü*ne / at*tı↷)
He blamed the accident on the pedestrian.
Bu masa bana ait.
(bu / ma*sa / ba*na / a:*it↷)
This table belongs to me.
Bir öğrenci ödevi-/n/e odaklanmalıdır.
(bir / öğ*ren*ci / ö*de*vi*ne / o*dak*lan*ma*lı*dır↷)
A student should concentrate on his homework.

43

Tüm parasını araba-/s/ı-/n/a harcar.
(tüm / pa*ra*sı*nı ~/ a*ra*ba*sı*na / har*car↷)
He spends all his money on his car. (In this sentence, “arabası” is the second part of a compound: “kendi arabası”.
Tüm sürücüler trafikte yoğun karbon diyoksit gaz-ı-/n/a ma:ruz kalırlar.
All drivers are exposed to dense carbon monoxide smoke in heavy traffic.
The noun compounds in the above sentences are all written in italics. When
the nouns, pronouns and infinitives above are attached to [e, a] allomorphs,
they form adverbs that generally show or imply the direction of a verb.
[DE] allomorphs: [de, da, te, ta]
The English equivalents of these allomorphs are "in", "at" or "on". However,
different prepositions may be used in English in place of the [DE] morpheme
of the Turkish language. This morpheme implies the place of a noun or an
infinitive. Read the example sentences:
Jack okul-da.
(jack / o*kul*da↷)
Jack is at (in) school.
Kardeşim ev-de.
(kar*de*şim / ev*de↷)
My brother is at home.
Mary masa-da oturuyor.
(mary / ma*sa*da / o*tu*ru*yor↷)
Mary is sitting at the table
Mr. Brown hastane-de.
(mis*tr / brown / has*ta:*ne*de↷)
Mr. Brown is in hospital. (He is there to be cured.)
Mrs. Brown kocasını görmek için hastaneye gitti.
(mi*sis / brawn / ko*ca*sı*nı / gör*mek / i*çin / has*ta:*ne*ye / git*ti↷)
Mrs. Brown went to the hospital to see her husband.
Postacı kapı-da.
(pos*ta*cı / ka*pı*da↷)
The mail carrier is at the door.
Onun başı dert-te.
(o*nun / ba*şı / dert*te↷)
He is in trouble.

44

Jack bura-da (burda).
(jack / bur*da↷)
Jack is here. (No preposition.)
Onlar ora-da (orda) değiller.
(on*lar / or*da / de*ğil*ler↷)
They are not there. (No preposition.)
Ben on yıldır İstanbul-da oturuyorum.
(ben / on / yıl*dır / is*tan*bul*da / o*tu*ru*yo*rum↷)
I have been living in İstanbul for ten years.
Kitaplar masa-da.
(ki*tap*lar / ma*sa*da↷)
The books are on the table.
Kalemler kutu-da.
(ka*lem*ler / ku*tu*da↷)
The pencils are in the box.
Papağan kafes-te.
(pa*pa*ğan / ka*fes*te↷)
The parrot is in the cage.
O hapis-te.
(o / ha*pis*te↷)
He is in jail.
Fiyat-ta uzlaştık (anlaştık).
(fi*yat*ta / uz*laş*tık↷)
We agreed on the price.
Kızlar, yabancı dil öğrenmek-te erkek çocuklardan daha yeteneklidirler.
(kız*lar~ / ya*ban*cı / dil / öğ*ren*mek*te ~/ er*kek / ço*cuk*lar*dan / da*ha /
ye*te*nek*li*dir*ler↷) (infinitive-[DE])
Girls are more talented than boys at learning foreign languages,
Hızlı sürmek-te ısrar etti.
(hız*lı / sür*mek*te / ıs*ra:r / et*ti↷) (infinitive-[DE])
He insisted on driving fast.
Ev-den (saat) sekiz-de ayrıldım.
(ev*den / se*kiz*de / ay*rıl*dım↷)
I left home at eight o’clock.
Okul-un kapı-/s/ı-/n/-da buluşalım.
(o*ku*lun / ka*pı*sın*da / bu*lu*şa*lım↷) (noun compound-[DE])
Let’s meet at the door of the school.

45

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