The noun sentence

Formation

Turkish has six personal pronouns: ben (I), sen (you, one person), o (he, she, it), biz (we), siz (you, several people or one person addressed politely) and onlar (they). The pronouns have no gender: o refers to a man, a woman, an animal or a thing.

Use

The personal ending of the copula or of the verb shows the person, so the subject pronoun is usually left out: Doktorum (“I’m a doctor”). The pronoun is expressed to stress or contrast the person, and when it stands alone: Ben öğretmenim, sen öğrencisin. (“I’m the teacher, you’re the student.”); Ben mi? (“Me?”). With a name, o is not used: Ayşe öğretmen. The case forms of the pronouns (bana, beni, bende, benden) are set out in Personal pronouns in the cases: bana, beni, bende, benden, the forms benim, senin in The genitive: benim evim, Ali'nin annesi.

Use

Sen is used to one person who is a friend, a member of the family or a child. Siz is used to several people, and also to one person addressed politely: a stranger, an older person, a customer, a teacher. The verb or the copula after siz always has the plural ending, even when one person is meant: Siz öğretmen misiniz? (“Are you a teacher?”). A person addressed as siz is often called by the first name with Bey (to a man) or Hanım (to a woman), or by the surname with Bay, Bayan: Ayşe Hanım, Bay Yılmaz.

Vowel harmony

Turkish has eight vowels: four front vowels, e, i, ö, ü, and four back vowels, a, ı, o, u. The vowel of most suffixes is not fixed: it is chosen to match the last vowel of the word the suffix is added to. There are two patterns. In two-way harmony the suffix has e after a front vowel and a after a back vowel: ev → evler, okul → okullar. In four-way harmony the suffix has i after e or i, ı after a or ı, u after o or u, and ü after ö or ü: ev → evim, ad → adım, okul → okulum, göz → gözüm. Every suffix is subject to one of the two patterns, always the same one.

Writing the suffixes

Grammars write a suffix with capital letters for the sounds that vary: A stands for a / e (two-way harmony), I for ı / i / u / ü (four-way harmony), D for d / t and C for c / ç. A letter in brackets appears only where it is needed: -(y)Im is -im, -ım, -um or -üm after a consonant, and -yim, -yım, -yum or -yüm after a vowel. This buffer y (in other suffixes buffer n or s) is inserted because two vowels do not meet at the joint between a word and a suffix.

Formation of the copula

In the present, “to be” is not a word but a personal ending, the copula, added to a noun or an adjective: -(y)Im for ben, -sIn for sen, nothing for o, -(y)Iz for biz, -sInIz for siz, nothing or -lAr for onlar. The vowel of each ending is chosen by four-way harmony; buffer y comes before -Im and -Iz after a vowel. On a proper name or a nationality, the ending is separated by an apostrophe: Türk'üm, İngiliz'im; a common noun takes none: öğretmenim.

Use

The copula makes a sentence of a noun (Öğretmenim, “I’m a teacher”), an adjective (Yorgunum, “I’m tired”) or a word with a case ending (Evdeyim, “I’m at home”, set out in Saying where: evde, okulda, sokakta, İstanbul'da). With o the noun or adjective stands alone: Ali öğretmen (“Ali is a teacher”). With onlar, -lAr is usually left out when the subject is named: Onlar öğrenci, Çocuklar mutlu. A job takes no bir (“a”): Ben doktorum.

Formation

The noun sentence is made negative with değil (“not”), written after the noun or adjective. The personal ending is then added to değil, not to the noun: değilim, değilsin, değil, değiliz, değilsiniz, değil or değiller. Since the last vowel of değil is i, its endings always have i.

Use

Değil negates a noun, an adjective and a word with a case ending: Evde değilim (“I’m not at home”). A verb is made negative with a suffix of its own, as The negative of the verb: gelmiyorum, gelmedi, gelme sets out, and “there is not” is yok, not değil. A short answer may be değil with its ending alone: Hayır, değilim. (“No, I’m not.”)

Formation

A yes-or-no question is formed with the question particle mi, which is in four-way harmony with the word before it: mi, mı, mu or mü. The particle is written as a separate word, but the personal ending is added to it, not to the noun: miyim, misin, mi, miyiz, misiniz, with buffer y before -im and -iz. A negative question is formed with değil followed by the particle: değil misin?

Use

The word order of the statement is kept, and the particle is placed after the word asked about, usually the last word: Ali öğretmen mi? (“Is Ali a teacher?”). Placed after another word, it asks about that word: Ali mi öğretmen? (“Is it Ali who is the teacher?”). The answers are evet (yes) and hayır (no), usually followed by the predicate: Evet, öğretmenim. Hayır, değilim. Değil mi? at the end of a statement asks for agreement, like English “isn’t it?”, “aren’t you?”. The particle in a verb question is set out with each tense, for instance in The present continuous: geliyorum, okuyor.

Formation

The demonstratives are bu (this, near the speaker), şu (that, nearby or pointed at) and o (that, farther away or already mentioned). As adjectives they come before the noun and never change: bu ev, şu kitaplar, o kadın. As pronouns they take the plural bunlar, şunlar, onlar, and before a case ending they take buffer n: bunu, bunda, bundan.

Use

A thing is asked about with ne (what), a person with kim (who): Bu ne? – Bir defter. Şu adam kim? – Murat. In the answer bir (“a”) comes before a thing, never before a name. Şu is used for something shown with the hand: Şu ne? (“What’s that there?”). O as a demonstrative is also the pronoun “he, she, it”: O kim? means “Who is that?” or “Who is he / she?”.

Formation

Burası (this place), şurası (that place, pointed at) and orası (that place, there) are nouns that name a place. The question word is neresi (what place, where): Burası neresi? The adverbs burada (here), şurada (there, pointed at) and orada (there) say where something is, and nerede asks it.

Use

Burası and orası are the subject of a noun sentence about a place: Burası bir okul (“This is a school”, “This place is a school”). Burası neresi? asks for the name of the place one is in: “Where are we?”, “What is this place?”. Burada, orada say where a person or a thing is: Ali burada (“Ali is here”).

Formation

Origin is stated with the place and the suffix -lI (-li, -lı, -lu, -lü), “from”, then the copula with buffer y: İzmir → İzmirli → İzmirliyim (“I’m from İzmir”); Ankara → Ankaralıyız. The suffix is joined to a place name without an apostrophe. The question is Nerelisin? (“Where are you from?”), made of nere (what place), -li and -sin. Age is stated with yaşında (“at the age of”) and the copula: Kaç yaşındasın? (“How old are you?”), Yirmi yaşındayım (“I’m twenty”).

Use

At A1, Nerelisin?, yaşındayım and Kaç yaşındasın? are learnt as set phrases. The suffix -lI itself, which also means “with” (sütlü, “with milk”), is set out in With and without: sütlü, şekersiz, İzmirli. The same copula after an adjective says how one is: İyiyim (“I’m fine”), Yorgunum (“I’m tired”), and Nasılsın? asks it.

Formation

The question words are kim (who), ne (what), nerede (where), nereye (where to), nereden (where from), ne zaman (when), nasıl (how), neden and niçin (why), kaç (how many), ne kadar (how much), hangi (which) and kaçıncı (which, in order). Kim, ne and nere- take case endings as nouns do: kime (to whom), kimi (whom), kimin (whose), kiminle (with whom), neyi (what, as an object), neyle (with what).

Use

A question word stands where the answer will stand, usually just before the verb, and the sentence takes no mi: Nereye gidiyorsun? (“Where are you going?”). Kaç and hangi come before a noun, which stays singular after kaç: kaç kişi (“how many people”), hangi otobüs (“which bus”). Ne kadar asks a price or a quantity: Bu tren bileti ne kadar? (“How much is this ticket?”). The answer to neden often opens with çünkü (because).