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Turkish Grammar Lessons TURKISH GRAMMAR LESSONS TURKISH FOR FOREIGNS YABANCILAR İÇİN TÜRKÇE DERS NOTU DR. BURAK GÖKBULUT 1 Turkish Grammar Lessons Contents 1. Introduction (Giriş) 2. Grammar (Dilbilgisi) 3. Alphabet (Alfabe) 4. Consonant Harmony (Sessiz Harf Uyumu) 5. Major Vowel Harmony (Büyük Ünlü Uyumu) 6. Minor Vowel Harmony (Küçük Ünlü Uyumu) 7. Vowel Rules (Ünlü Harflerle ilgili Kurallar) 8. Adding a buffer consonant in between two vowels (İsmin Halleri, Kaynaştırma Harfleri...) 9. Infinitives and Plurals (Mastar ve çokluk eki) 10. Negatives (Olumsuzluk) 11. There is, there is not (Var, yok) 12. Questions (Soru) 13. Noun states (İsmin Halleri) 14. To be (Olmak, -dır) 15. Adjective (Sıfat) 16. Noun clauses (İsim Tamlamaları) 17. Numbers (Sayılar) 18. Fractions (Kesirler ve üleşik sayılar) 19. Sequence Numbers (Sıralama Sayıları) 20. Personal Pronouns (Kişi Zamirleri) 21. Demonstrative pronouns (İşaret Zamirleri) 22. Possessive Pronouns (İyelik Zamirleri) 23. Reflexive Pronouns (Dönüşlülük Zamirleri) 24. Date and Time (Tarih ve Zaman) 25. Day of the week (Günler) 26. Seasons (Mevsimler) 27. Antonyms (Zıt Anlamlılar) 28. Quantity Words (Miktar) 29. Colors (Renkler) 30. Family (Aile) 31. Fruits and vegetables (Meyveler ve Sebzeler) 32. Our Body and Organs (Vücudumuz ve Organlarımız) 33. Animals (Hayvanlar) 34. Character (Karakter tarifi) 35. House and furniture (Ev ve eşyaları) 36. Illness (Hastalık) 37. Tenses (Fiilde Kip-Haber Kipleri) 38. Present continuous tense (Şimdiki zaman) 39. Future tense (Gelecek zaman) 40. Present simple tense (Geniş zaman) 41. Definite past tense, Past tense with -di (-di'li geçmiş zaman) 42. Indefinite past tense, Past tense with -miş (-miş'li geçmiş zaman) 43. Must, Have to, Need to, Want to (-meli, zorunda-lazım, gerek, isteme) 44. Degrees of Adjectives (Sıfatlarda derecelendirme: daha, en, kadar) 45. Comparatives (En) 46. Superlatives (Daha) 47. Making an adjective stronger (Sıfatları güçlnedirme: çok, fazla, pekiştirme) 48. Imperatives – Let, Wish Clouse (Emir kipi – İstek kipi) 49. The Definite and Indefinite Article in Turkish (a, an: bir) 50. Directions (Yönler) 51. Introducing yourself (Tanışma) 2 Turkish Grammar Lessons (TURKISH FOR FOREIGNS) LECTURER: DR. BURAK GÖKBULUT INTRODUCTION Grammar Turkish grammar is simplistic once you get used to the style. However, it can seem to be very difficult since the grammatical structure is totally different from the Indo-European languages. This is because Turkish is from a different language family called Ural-Altaic languages. Some languages similar to Turkish are ´Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Kazak, Uzbek, Tatar, Manchu´. Compared to English, the most fundamental differences in Turkish grammar can be listed as: Ordering of sentence parts o A typical Turkish sentence is ordered as (subject + object + verb) . ArkadaĢım [My friend --> subject] araba [car -->object] aldı [bought-- >verb]. No gender o There are no articles in Turkish, and no gender associated with words o No gender in personal pronouns (the Turkish word for he, she and it is o) Vowel harmony o Harmony of vowels is a very fundamental property of Turkish. The rules concerning vowel harmony need to be learned as one of the first steps because they affect the way almost all the other rules are applied. Use of suffixes o Suffixes are very widely used in Turkish. The meaning of prepositions, personal pronouns and tenses are all countered by adding suffixes to word roots. Kalbimdesin [You are in my heart] Once you get to these differences and learn the basic harmony rules, the rest of the grammar is quite simple. Almost everything follows well defined, simple rules. Sounds Another important point is the way you read a written text. There is exactly one sound for each character in Turkish. A character always represents the same sound, regardless of its position in a word or the characters next to it. Therefore, it is straightforward to pronounce a word that you see for the first time once you are familiar with the characters in the Turkish alphabet. Vocabulary Once you are comfortable or at least familiar with the harmony rules, the main challenge will be the vocabulary. Turkish vocabulary can be very challenging since the words have no resemblance to the European languages except the few words adapted directly from these languages. Alphabet Turkish alphabet consists of 29 letters - 8 vowels and 21 consonants. 21 consonants: b, c, ç, d, f, g, ğ, h, j, k, I, m, n, p, r, s, ş, t, v, y, z. 8 vowels are: a, e, ı, i, o, ö, u, ü. There are eight vowels in Turkish which are divided into two groups as follows: The A-Undotted Vowels - A I O U The E-Dotted Vowels - E İ Ö Ü Each letter has exactly one associated sound which never changes. Three letters of the English alphabet are missing in the Turkish alphabet. NEAR EAST UNIVERSITY, ART AND SCIENCE FACULTY, TURKISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT, LECTURER. 3 1. (Q-q) 2. (W-w) 3. (X-x) There are seven additional characters not found in the English alphabet. 1. (Ç-ç) 2. (Ğ-ğ) 3. (I-ı) 4. (Ġ-i) 5. (Ö-ö) 6. (ġ-Ģ) 7. (Ü-ü) The letters of Turkish alphabet and the sounds associated with these are in the following table Letter Pronunciation A, a like the a in car B, b like the b in bet C, c like the g in gender Ç, ç like the ch in chance D, d like the d in debt E, e like the e in less F, f like the f in felony G, g like the g in game Ğ, ğ this is a very weak sound, not pronouncing at all will be ok H, h like the h in hello I, ı like the e in halted Ġ, i like the ee in keen J, j like the s in leisure K, k like the k in kelly L, l like the l in lamb M, m like the m in man N, n like the n in neighbor O, o like the a in ball Ö, ö like the u in urge P, p like the p in pen R, r like the r in rent S, s like the s in send ġ, Ģ like the sh in shed T, t like the t in tennis U, u like the oo in good Ü, ü like the u in nude V, v like the v in vent Y, y like the y in yes Z, z like the z in zen 4 Consonant Harmony Besides the vowel harmony rules, there are other basic rules that affect the way suffixes are used. A vowel following another is never allowed in Turkish, and there are rules to avoid these situations when they occur as a result of other rules. There are also rules about consonant harmony, that make some consonants change in certain cases. Vowel harmony rules cause the vowels of suffixes to be modified when they are added to some words. There are similar rules about consonants. However, you may feel that all these rules are too many just for a simple start. Then, I advice you to omit the consonant harmony rules when you want to say or write something, just for the beginning. You will still be understood. Consonant harmony is mainly for making speech more fluent, it does not have a major effect on understandability. You will eventually learn these if you decide to continue learning Turkish, as you read sentences or listen to Turkish speakers. Tip Consonant harmony is mainly for making speech more fluent, it does not have a major effect on understandability. There are two different cases of consonant harmony - either the last consonant of the main word changes, or the first consonant of the suffix changes. The trouble making consonants in this case arep, ç, t and k. Let´s call the words that end with one of p, ç, t or k the trouble words. CASE A - Word mutation. (Ünsüz yumuşaması) Two conditions must be satisfied for word mutation to occur: 1. You have a word ending with one of ´p, ç, t, k´. 2. You want to add this word a suffix that starts with a vowel. If the word has only one syllable, like saç, you are safe. The word usually does not change. saç-ı --> saçı (his/her/its hair) sap-a --> sapa (to the handle) However, if the word has more than one syllable, than the consonant at the end usually changes. p becomes b ç becomes c t becomes d k becomes ğ And here are some examples to this: ağaç-a --> ağaca (to the tree) Ģarap-ın --> Ģarabın (of the wine) kağıt-a --> kağıda (to the paper) geyik-e --> geyiğe (to the deer) Tip There are exceptions to both the single syllable and multiple syllable cases mentioned above. For example: kap-a --> kaba (to the container) saat-in --> saatin (the clock´s) You should still learn and apply the rules though, there are not too many of these exceptions. CASE B - Suffix mutation. (Ünsüz benzeşmesi) Two conditions must be satisfied for suffix mutation to occur: 1. You have a word ending with one of p, ç, t, k, f, h, s, ş. 2. You want to add this word a suffix that starts with c or d. 5 In this case, the first letter of the consonant changes. c becomes ç d becomes t Examples: Leh --> Polish (people) Leh-ce --> Lehçe --> Polish (language) Türk --> Turkish (people) Türk-ce --> Türkçe --> Turkish (lanuage) yap --> do yap-di --> yaptı --> he did kebapçı/ yavaĢça/ ayakta/ ağaçta/kitapta/Atatürkçü(c=ç)/Türkçü(c=ç). Major Vowel Harmony Vowel harmony is one of the most fundamental and important aspects of Turkish grammar. Turkish words generally obey two vowel harmony rules, called the major vowel harmony and the minor vowel harmony.
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