Turkish grammar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Turkish is a highly agglutinative language, ie., Turkish words have many grammatical suffixes or endings that
determine meaning. Turkish vowels undergo vowel harmony. When a suffix is attached to a stem, the vowel
in the suffix agrees in frontness or backness and in roundedness with the last vowel in the stem. Turkish has
no gender
Contents
1 Introduction
= 11 Suffixes
= 12 Gender
= 13 Person
= 13.1 T-V distinction
= 13.2 Honotifies
= 1.4 Turkish terminology
2 Parts of speech,
3 Word-order
4 Inflexional suffixes
5 Nouns
= 5.1 Inflexion
= 5.1.1 Number
= 5.1.2 Possession
= 5.13 Case
= 5.1.4 Predication
= 5.2 Verbal nouns
= 53 Auxiliary verbs
6 Adjectives
= 6.1 Use
= 6.2 Descriptive adjectives
= 63 Indefinite adjectives
= 6.4 Participles
7 Adverbs
8 Pronouns
9 Verbs
= 9.1 Copula
= 9.2 Stems of verbs
= 9.2.1 Verb-stems from nouns
= 9.2.2 Voice
= 9.23 Negation and potential in verb-stems
9.3 Bases of verbs
9.4 Questions
9.5 Optative and imperative moods
9.6 The defective verb i-
9.7 Compound bases
= 10 Notes= 11 References
= 11.1 Grammars
= 11.2 Dictionaries
= 113 Other Grammars
= 12 Extemal links
Introduction
Suffixes
A suffix (ef) is attached to a stem (gdvde). A stem may be a root (ké#) or further analyzable. The suffixes
used in Turkish fall roughly into two classes: constructive suffixes (api ekler?) and inflectional suffixes
(cekim ekteri). A constructive suffix makes a new word from an old one, that is, itis a derivational suffix. An
inflectional suffix indicates how a word is used in a sentence, The article on Turkish grammar pertains chiefly
to inflectional suffixes. The atticle on Turkish vocabulary treats the constructive suffixes
A Turkish suffix can be called enclitic if its vowel undergoes vowel harmony, agreeing with the last vowel of
the stem the suffix is attached to
Gender
Turkish is a gender-neutal language except for a few sex-specific compound words (mostly naming
professions). English third peison singular pronouns "she", "he", and "it" all conespond to a single Turkish
pronoun 0. Since many given names in Turkish are also gender-neutral, itis possible to describe someone
without their sex being made known
Person
Turkish has a stong T-V distinction and usage of honorifics. Turkish uses second-person pronouns that
distinguish varying levels of politeness, social distance, age, courtesy or familiarity toward the addressee. The
plural second-person pronoun and verb forms are used referring to a single person out of respect, as is done in
French and Russian
T-V distinction
Family members and friends speak to one another using the second singular person "sen" as well as adults use
"sen" to address minors. In formal situations (meeting people first time, business, customer-clerk, colleagues)
plural second-person "siz" is used almost exclusively. In very formal situations, double plural second-person
"sizler" may be used to refer to a much-respected person. Rarely, third plural conjugation of the verb (but not
the pronoun) may be used to emphasize utmost respect. In imperative, there are three forms: second singular
person for informal, second plural person for formal and double plural second person for very formal
situations: "gel" (second singular, informal), "gelin" (second plural, formal), "geliniz" (double second plural,
very formal). The very formal forms are not frequently used.
Honorifics