Turkish grammar


Turkish grammar[], as described in this article, is the grammar of standard Turkish as spoken and written by educated people in the Republic of Turkey.
Turkish is a highly agglutinative language, in that much of the grammar is expressed by means of suffixes added to nouns and verbs. It is very regular compared with many European languages. For [|example], evlerden "from the houses" can be analysed as ev "house", -ler, -den ; gidiyorum "I am going" as git "go", -iyor, -um.
Another characteristic of Turkish is vowel harmony. Most suffixes have two or four different forms, the choice between which depends on the vowel of the word's root or the preceding suffix: for example, the ablative case of evler is evlerden "from the houses" but, the ablative case of başlar "heads" is başlardan "from the heads".
Verbs have six grammatical persons, various voices, and a large number of grammatical tenses. Meanings such as "not", "be able", "must" and "if", which are expressed as separate words in most European languages, are usually expressed with verbal suffixes in Turkish. A characteristic of Turkish which is shared by neighboring languages such as Bulgarian and Persian is that the perfect tense suffix often has an inferential meaning, e.g. geliyormuşum "it would seem that I am coming".
Verbs also have a number of participial forms, which Turkish makes much use of. Clauses which begin with "who" or "because" in English are generally translated by means of participial phrases in Turkish.
In Turkish, verbs generally come at the end of the sentence or clause; adjectives and possessive nouns come before the noun they describe; and meanings such as "behind", "for", "like/similar to" etc. are expressed as postpositions following the noun rather than prepositions before it.

Introduction

Suffixes

A suffix is attached to a stem. A stem may be a root or further analyzable. The suffixes used in Turkish fall roughly into two classes: constructive suffixes and inflectional suffixes. A constructive suffix makes a new word from an old one, that is, it is a derivational suffix. An inflectional suffix indicates how a word is used in a sentence. The article on Turkish grammar pertains chiefly to inflectional suffixes. The article on Turkish vocabulary treats the constructive suffixes.
The vowels of suffixes undergo vowel harmony. When a suffix is attached to a stem, the vowel in the suffix generally agrees in frontness or backness and in roundedness with the last vowel in the stem or of the preceding suffix.
Some suffixes show two-way vowel harmony between e and a, for example the plural suffix -ler/-lar. The e form is found after a syllable with i, e, ö or ü, and also after certain Arabic or French borrowings such as saatler "hours, clocks", kalpler "hearts". Other suffixes show four-way vowel harmony between i, ı, u, ü, for example the possessive ending -im/-ım/-um/-üm "my". These endings are found after syllables containing their own vowels or after e, a, o, ö respectively
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-neutral language except for a few sex-specific compound words. The English third-person singular pronouns she, he, and it all correspond to a single Turkish pronoun, o. Since many given names in Turkish are also gender-neutral, it is possible to describe someone without their sex being made known.

Person

Turkish has a strong T–V distinction, using the second-person plural as the formal form, as in French and many other languages.
Turkish also uses various honorifics.

T–V distinction

Family members and friends speak to one another using the second singular person sen, and adults use sen to address minors. In formal situations plural second-person siz is used almost exclusively. In very formal situations, double plural second-person sizler may refer to a much-respected person. Rarely, third-person plural conjugation of the verb may be used to emphasize utmost respect. In the imperative, there are three forms: second person singular for informal, second person plural for formal, and double plural second person for very formal situations. Thus, the imperative forms of the verb gelmek, "to come", are gel, gelin, and geliniz. The very formal forms are not frequently used.

Honorifics

Turkish honorifics generally follow the first name, especially if they refer to gender or particular social statuses, Hanım, Hoca ). Such honorifics are used both in formal and informal situations. A newer honorific is Sayın, which precedes the surname or full name, and is not gender-specific.. They are generally used in very formal situations. While these honorifics are normally used in pre-position to Turkish first names, for foreigners, names are preceded by Bay or Bayan : Bay Mulder, Bayan Scully.

Turkish terminology

In the Turkish terms for the constructive and inflectional endings, three roots are involved:
  • ek "supplement, affix"
  • yap- "make"
  • çek- "pull, draw"
For the last two verbal roots, the constructive suffix -im can be added to form nouns for instances of the actions denoted by the roots:
  • yapım "construction";
  • çekim " pull or draw".
Either of these nouns can be compounded with the noun ek, resulting in an indefinite compound, the sign of which is the inflectional suffix -i attached to ek:
  • yapım eki "structure-suffix";
  • çekim eki "inflection-suffix".
The inflectional suffix -ler comes before the -i to form the plural, so yapım ekleri, çekim ekleri.
Many words in Turkish— particularly many grammatical terms— are neologisms invented to replace earlier words borrowed from Arabic or Persian, which have largely been successful at permanently superseding the previously-used foreign terms. In some cases, the foreign term continues to be in use alongside the neologism.

Parts of speech

There are nine parts of speech in Turkish.
  1. noun ;
  2. pronoun ;
  3. adjective ;
  4. verb.
  5. adverb ;
  6. postposition ;
  7. conjunction ;
  8. [|particle] ;
  9. interjection.
Postpositions are analogous to prepositions in English, the main difference being that they follow their objects. Postpositions can be considered particles, but there are particles in Turkish that are not postpositions.
Only nouns, pronouns and verbs are inflected in Turkish. An adjective can usually be treated as a noun or pronoun, in which case it can also be inflected. Inflection can give a noun features of a verb such as person and tense. With inflection, a verb can become one of the following:
These have peculiarities not shared with other nouns, adjectives or adverbs.
For example, some participles take a person the way verbs do.
Also, a verbal noun or adverb can take a direct object.
Some verbal nouns are not inflected forms in Turkish but are borrowed from Arabic or other languages.
In Turkish, an ascriptive clause can be composed of a common noun standing alone as the Predicative, both the Subject and the Predicator being implicit and assumed from the situation. Example:
This means that both a noun and a verb can alone constitute an affirmative clause in Turkish, which is not the case in English.
There are two standards for listing verbs in dictionaries. Most dictionaries follow the tradition of spelling out the infinitive form of the verb as the headword of the entry, but others such as the Redhouse Turkish-English Dictionary are more technical and spell out the stem of the verb instead, that is, they spell out a string of letters that is useful for producing all other verb forms through morphological rules. Similar to the latter, this article follows the stem-as-citeword standard.
  • Infinitive: koşmak
  • Stem: koş-
In Turkish, the verbal stem is also the second-person singular imperative form. Example:
Many verbs are formed from nouns by addition of -le. For example:
The aorist tense of a verb is formed by adding -r. The plural of a noun is formed by suffixing -ler.
Hence, the suffix -ler can indicate either a plural noun or a finite verb:
Most adjectives can be treated as nouns or pronouns. For example, genç can mean "young", "young person", or "the young person being referred to".
An adjective or noun can stand, as a modifier, before a noun. If the modifier is a noun, then the second noun word takes the inflectional suffix -i:
Comparison of adjectives is not done by inflecting adjectives or adverbs, but by other means.
Adjectives can serve as adverbs, sometimes by means of repetition:

Word order

A general rule of Turkish word order is that the modifier precedes the modified:
  • adjective precedes noun;
  • adverb precedes verb;
  • object of postposition precedes postposition.
Although the most common order of Turkish transitive sentences is subject–object–verb, all six permutations are valid. The word order serves to express the theme and focus of the sentence. The sentence initial portion is associated with the topic, the position just before the verb is used for the focus, and the post verbal position is used for background or clarifying information
The following sentences illustrate how Subject-Object-Verb order changes the meaning. In the English translations given here, the focus of the sentence is given in all capitals, while the background information is given in parenthesis.
Word orderTurkishGlossEnglishNotes
SOVAli eve gidiyor.Ali to-house is-goingAli is going home.
OSVEve Ali gidiyor.to-house Ali is-goingAli is going home.
SVOAli gidiyor eve.Ali is-going to houseAli is going home.
OVSEve gidiyor Ali.to-house is-going AliAli is going home.Same as SOV.
VSOGidiyor Ali eve.is-going Ali to-houseThere goes Ali home.Anacoluthon
VOSGidiyor eve Ali.is-going to-house AliThere goes Ali home.Anacoluthon

Meanings may be different depending on emphasis.
In one study, only about half of the transitive sentences used by a sample of Turkish speakers were found to be in the SOV order.
When a sentence has a multiple informational components, the stressed component is positioned just before the verb:
TurkishGlossEnglish
Ali bugün eve arabayla gidiyor.Ali today to-house by-car is-goingToday, Ali is going to the house by car.
Ali eve arabayla bugün gidiyor.Ali to-house by-car today is-goingToday, Ali is going to the house by car.
Ali arabayla bugün eve gidiyor.Ali by-car today to-house is-goingToday, Ali is going to the house by car.


Morpheme order

The order of morphemes in Turkish is often opposite to English:
The above example is also illustrative of the productive nature of Turkish suffixes in creating new verbs, nouns, etc. Note that the word Avrupalılaştıramadık can be a verb, a participle, or a noun; In this parse, it is a participle, or verbal adjective, that is used as a noun.
The longest published word in Turkish, muvaffakiyetsizleştiricileştiriveremeyebileceklerimizdenmişsinizcesine, means "as if you are one of those that we cannot easily convert into an unsuccessful-person-maker".

Inflectional suffixes

The plural suffix can be used with nouns and with third-person verbs:
  • -ler
  • -lar
Nouns are derived from verbs in several ways. The number of ways of forming verbal nouns from verb-stems can be debated; here are three:
Several series of endings show distinctions of person ; they are given here, along with the personal pronouns for comparison:
The names given to the personal endings here are not standard. These endings are often just referred to as type I, II, III, and IV respectively; but the order in which the types are numbered is also not standard. Lewis refers to the suffixes of possession as "personal" endings.
In the third person, plural number is not always explicitly marked, and the same form is used for both singular and plural. If the plural suffix -ler is used, it combines with the personal endings as indicated in the final column of the table.
A "suffix of possession" gives the person of the possessor of the object named by the noun to which the suffix is attached; it also indicates a subject for a participle.
A "predicative" ending can assign a person to a noun, thus creating a complete sentence:
See also and Turkish copula.
All of the personal suffixes can be used in the formation of verbs.
Verb-stems have been mentioned.
A verb-base is obtained from a verb-stem by attachment of certain suffixes or characteristics given [|below].
Then the personal endings here called "predicative" and "verbal" attach only to verb-bases; the optative and imperative endings attach to verb-stems.
The first syllable of the present/imperfective tense suffix exhibits vowel harmony while the second is invariable. When suffixed to a stem ending in a vowel, that vowel is elided: ye- + -iyor → yiyor. The aorist negative and impotential forms are given here because they are anomalous. Note, that the -z of the aorist negative and impotential is dropped in the first-person singular and plural, in order to be able to suffix it.
See also Negation and potential in verb-stems under below.
Some third-person verbs also function as participles.
Participles can be classified as personal, if they take a suffix of possession, and impersonal, if they do not. The following suffixes attach to verb-stems:
The interrogative particle is not written as a suffix, but phonetically it is enclitic; in particular, it exhibits vowel harmony:
  • mi
  • mı
  • mu
  • mü

    Nouns

Inflection

A Turkish noun has no gender.
The dictionary-form of a noun can take up to four #Inflectional suffixes, generally in the following order:
  1. plural suffix;
  2. suffix of possession ;
  3. case-ending;
  4. personal suffix.
Through its presence or absence, the plural ending shows distinctions of number.

Number

A noun is made plural by addition of -ler or -lar. When a numeral is used with a noun, however, the plural suffix is usually not used:
The plural ending also allows a family to be designated by a single member:
In the last example, the first-person singular suffix of possession comes before the plural ending; this is an exception to the order of suffixes given above. In the usual order, we have:
Nouns are pluralized in standard temporal greetings.

Possession

As noted earlier, the suffixes of possession give the person of the possessor of what is named by the noun:
1st2nd3rd
singular-m-n-i
plural-miz-niz-leri

When a word takes one of the endings of possession, the word becomes the name of something possessed, not possessing. The word for the possessor, if present, takes the genitive case ending.
ExampleCompositionTranslation
teyzenteyze "maternal aunt" + -n "belonging to you ""your maternal aunt"
teyzenizteyze "maternal aunt" + -niz "belonging to you ""your maternal aunt"
teyzelerinteyze "maternal aunt" + -ler- + -in "belonging to you ""your maternal aunts"
teyzelerinizteyze "maternal aunt" + -ler- + -iniz "belonging to you ""your maternal aunts"

The plural ending will not be attached twice to the same word; therefore ambiguity is possible:
Ambiguity can be resolved with #Pronouns.

Case

Turkish cases and case endings can be named and used roughly as in Latin:
CaseTurkish NameEndingExample
Absoluteyalın durum-Ø-ev
Definite Accusativebelirtme durumu-ı-, -i-, -u-, -ü-evi
Dativeyönelme durumu-a-, -e-eve
Locativebulunma durumu-da-, -de-, -ta-, -te-evde
Ablativeçıkma durumu-dan-, -den-, -tan-, -ten-evden
Genitivetamlayan eki-ın-, -in-, -un-, -ün-evin

The absolute case combines the uses of the nominative, vocative, and accusative cases. It is for subjects, and for names of people being addressed. It is also used for indefinite direct objects. Definite direct objects are in the definite-accusative case:
The dative case tells whither, that is, the place to which.
Thus it has roughly the meaning of the English prepositions "to" and "into", and also "in" when it can be replaced with "into":
The dative also is for objects, usually indirect objects, but sometimes objects that in English would be considered direct:
The locative case tells where, hence corresponds to the English prepositions "at", "on", and "in".
The ablative case tells whence, that is, the place from which, hence:
  • material out of which something is made;
  • a cause by which something is effected;
  • that to which other things are being compared.
In Turkish terminology, the genitive case indicates a "compounding" word. The corresponding "compounded" word will take the appropriate suffix of possession. The pair of these words is then a definite compound :
However, if two nouns are connected, but not by ownership, then the second noun generally takes an ending of possession, while the first takes no ending. The result is an indefinite compound :
If one noun names a material, the other noun need not take an ending:

Predication

If a noun is to be in the first or second person, one of the predicative suffixes will show this.
1st2nd3rd
singular-im-sin—
plural-iz-siniz-ler

Examples
In the third person, no ending is required.
However, the ending -dir can be used; it is said to be the remnant of a verb turur "S/he stands".
Again in the third person, the plural suffix may be used:
Several suffixes can be combined:

Verbal nouns

The infinitive, formed with -mek as noted earlier, does not take a suffix of possession, or the genitive case-ending. It does take all other case-endings. In particular, the progressive characteristic given earlier is the infinitive ending with the locative ending:
The verbal noun in -me is called a gerund above, since it corresponds roughly to the English gerund.
The verbal noun can take a suffix of possession and any case-ending:
The dative form of a Turkish gerund can correspond precisely to an English infinitive with to:
The suffix -iş can also be used to create verbal nouns:
The verb et- "make, do" can be considered as an auxiliary verb, since for example it is often used with verbal nouns borrowed from other languages, such as Arabic:
kabul et- "accept" ;
reddet- "reject" ;
ziyaret et- "visit" .
Considered as units, these are transitive verbs; but the nouns in them can also, by themselves, take direct objects:
Antalya'yı ziyaret "visit to Antalya".
What looks like an ablative gerund is usually an adverb; the ending -meden usually has the sense of "without".
See #Adverbs below.
An infinitive in the absolute case can be the object of a verb such as iste- "want":
Kimi eğitime devam etmek,
"Some-of-them towards-education continuation make
kimi de çalışmak istiyor.
some-of-them also work want"
that is, "Some want to continue their education, and some want to work"
Note here that the compound verb devam et- "continue, last" does not take a direct object, but is complemented by a dative noun.
Another way to express obligation is by means of zor "trouble, compulsion" and an infinitive:
Gitmek zoru "Go compulsion",
Gitmek zorundayız "We must go".
Both an infinitive and a gerund are objects of the postposition için "for" in the third sentence of the quotation within the following quotation:
A free translation is:

The facility authorities said: "The people of this district are generally conservative. They cannot enter the lake comfortably, because the shore areas are near the road. So we are using a screen, both to close off the view of passersby on the road, and so that men will not cause discomfort." However, children cannot be prevented from spying on the other side through gaps in the screen.

Auxiliary verbs

Certain verbs in Turkish are used to enhance the meaning of other verbs, or to agglutinate verbs from nouns. These verbs are called auxiliary verbs. A concise list follows:
Verbs that are used with nouns to agglutinate new verbs
  • etmek
  • olmak
  • kılmak
  • eylemek
Examples
  • farz → farz etmek
  • hak → hak etmek
  • af → affetmek
  • kayıp → kaybetmek
  • terk → terk etmek
  • arz → arz etmek
If there is a change in the noun root through the process of agglutination, it is written adjacently. These are mostly Arabic loan-words, which switch to their more original form.
In Turkish words, two consonants of a syllable need a vowel to be pronounced. There are exceptions in loan words only, but those that lost their original form are more common. This occurs in two ways:
If a word ends in two identical consonants, one is dropped, e.g. hall becomes hal; aff becomes af.
If a syllable ends in two different consonants, a vowel is added between them; e.g., hükm becomes hüküm.
Exceptions: Words which end in nk, rt, rk, such as , renk, kart, do not add a vowel. Most of these are loan-words from Persian or Western languages.
Examples
Noun & Auxiliary VerbVerbNotes
kayıp + etmekkaybetmek kayıp was originally kayb, an Arabic loanword
haciz + etmekhaczetmek haciz was originally hacz, an Arabic loanword
haz + etmekhazzetmek haz was originally hazz, an Arabic loanword

Verbs that are used with other verbs to enhance the meaning:
  • -vermek
  • -bilmek
  • -durmak
  • -gelmek
  • -kalmak
  • -yazmak
Examples
  • düş- → düşeyazdım
  • git- → gidiverdim
  • yavaşla- → yavaşlayabilirim
  • yaz- → yazaduruyorlar
  • söyle- → söylenegelir

    Adjectives

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

Descriptive adjectives

Most adjectives in the dictionary are descriptive. The two most fundamental descriptive adjectives are:
  • var
  • yok
These are used only predicatively:
  • with the sense of the English "There is" and "There is not":
  • in the construction that supplies the lack of a verb "have":

    Indefinite adjectives

The cardinal number bir can be used as an indefinite article. Word order can make a difference:
Unless it is being used by itself, elliptically, the adjective hiç requires an additional word with negative force:
Compare:
  • Bir şey görüyorum. – "I see something."
  • Hiçbir şey göremiyorum. – "I can't see anything."

    Comparison

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

Participles

It is noted under #Parts of speech that Turkish participles can be classified as
  • personal, if they take a suffix of possession;
  • impersonal, if they do not.
In a personal participle, the suffix of possession signifies the subject of the underlying verb; if this possessor is third person, then the possessor may be further specified with a noun in the genitive case.
The noun modified by a personal participle as an adjective may be the direct object of the underlying verb; the connexion may also be more vague.
The noun modified by an impersonal participle is generally the subject of the underlying verb.
The aorist tense is for habitual actions; the present tense is for actions ongoing or contemplated.

Aorist

Present

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

Future

Past/present

A personal participle can be construed as a noun and used in parallel with verbal nouns:
that is, "Children are working, 68% to provide for their family's needs, 21% because their family wants it, 6% to learn a job or profession, 4% to meet their needs."
The following sentence from a newspaper headline contains twenty-two words, nine derived from verbs, four of these as participles, three as gerunds. Note also the use of kontrol from French as a verbal noun with et-:
In other words:

Saying that, by not joining the EU and by drawing close to the Islamic world, Turkey would be pushed into the lap of those who favor sharia, French senator Duireux made clear that it was necessary to control the Islamic tide.

Adverbs

The adverb of negation is değil. It is used to negate sentences that are without verb or var; then it takes the appropriate personal ending:
Evde değilim "I am not at home."
A number of adverbs are derived from verbs:
The ending -e is seen in:
Güle güle " smilingly" ;
Güle güle kullanın "Use smilingly" ;
Beşe çeyrek kala kalktım "To-five a-quarter remaining I-got-up", that is,
"I got up at a quarter to five";
Onu yirmi geçe uyudun "You slept at twenty past ten"
.
The ending -erek denotes action at the same time as, or preceding, that of another verb:
Geceyi konuşarak geçirdik "The-night talking we-caused-to-pass", that is,
"We spent the night talking."
Akıl yürüterek bu sonuca ulaşıyorum "By using reason, I arrived at this conclusion"
.
Doğaya en az zarar vererek yaşamak "To live while giving the least harm to nature"
.
From ol- "be, become", olarak forms adverbial phrases corresponding to those in English with "as":
Size bir dost olarak söylüyorum "To-you a friend as I'm-telling", that is,
"I'm telling you this as a friend";
ciddi olarak "seriously".
The ending -meden on a verb-stem looks like the ablative gerund, but it is not.
It indicates an action not occurring at all, or following that of the main verb:
Bakmadan atlama "Don't leap without looking";
Bakmadan önce atlama "Don't leap before looking."
Bir soruyu cevaplamadan tartışmak,
tartışmadan cevaplamaktan iyidir
"A particular-question without-answering to-debate
without-debating from-to-answer is-good," that is,
"It is better to debate without answering than to answer without debating."
Complementing önce "before" is sonra "after", which can follow a verb-stem given the ending -dikten:
Baktıktan sonra atla "After looking, leap";
Ayşe baktıktan sonra Neşe atladı "After Ayşe looked, Neşe leapt."
Simultaneity is expressed by iken or its suffixed form -ken; but if it follows a verb, then the verb appears, not as a stem, but as a base; see #Bases of verbs:
Eve girmekteyken, bir şey hatırladım "As I was entering the house, I remembered something";
Ben eve girmekteyken, telefon çaldı "As I was entering the house, the telephone rang."
If two verbs of the same grammatical form have the same subject, the endings on the first verb can be replaced by -ip; see the example under #Participles.

Pronouns

The third-person personal pronoun o "she/he/it" is declined as if it were the noun on.
The other persons, ben "I", sen "you ", biz "we", siz "you ", are declined like nouns, except for a vowel change in the dative, and an anomalous genitive; also the plural forms do not involve -ler:
The absolute case is generally needed only for emphasis:
The third-person pronoun can clear up an ambiguity mentioned above:
The pronoun o is also one of the demonstrative pronouns:
  • o "that";
  • bu "this";
  • şu "this or that".
The latter two are declined like o.
The interrogative pronouns are:
  • kim "who";
  • ne "what";
  • hangi "which";
  • kaç "how many" or "how much".
These appear in embedded questions but do not serve as true relative pronouns:
There is a suffix -ki that acts as a relative pronoun in that it creates what, in English, would be called relative clauses. It does not display vowel harmony, except in a few common formations:
The reflexive pronoun is kendi "own, self":
Many of the indefinite adjectives can function as pronouns, taking case-endings.

Verbs

Copula

Stems of verbs

Many stems in the dictionary are indivisible; others consist of endings attached to a root.

Verb-stems from nouns

The verb-stem temizle- "make clean" is the adjective temiz "clean" with the suffix -le; this suffix was mentioned earlier under #Parts of speech in connexion with the verb köpekle-. Many verbs are formed from nouns or adjectives with -le:

Voice

A verbal root, or a verb-stem in -le, can be lengthened with certain extensions. If present, they appear in the following order, and they indicate distinctions of voice:
These endings might seem to be inflectional in the sense of the above, but their meanings are not always clear from their particular names, and dictionaries do generally give the resulting forms, so in this sense they are constructive endings.
The causative extension makes an intransitive verb transitive, and a transitive verb factitive. Together, the reciprocal and causative extension make the repetitive extension -ştir.

Negation and potential in verb-stems

A dictionary-stem is positive; it can be made:
  • negative, by addition of -me;
  • impotential, by addition of -e and then -me.
Any of these three stems can be made potential by addition of -e and then -bil. The -bil is not enclitic, but represents the verb bil- "know, be able"; the first syllable of the impotential ending represents an obsolete verb u- "be powerful, able" #Lewis .
So far then, there are six kinds of stems:
Such stems are not used for aorist forms, which have their own peculiar means of forming negatives and impotentials.

Bases of verbs

The characteristics with which verb-bases are formed from stems are given under. Note again that aorist verbs have their own peculiar negative and impotential forms.
The progressive base in -mekte is discussed under.
Another base, namely the necessitative, is formed from a verbal noun.
The characteristic is -meli, where -li forms adjectives from nouns, and -me forms gerunds from verb-stems.
A native speaker may perceive the ending -meli as indivisible; the analysis here is from #Lewis ).
The present base is derived from the ancient verb yorı- "go, walk" #Lewis ; this can be used for ongoing actions, or for contemplated future actions.
The meaning of the aorist base is described under [|#Adjectives from verbs: participles].
There is some irregularity in first-person negative and impotential aorists. The full form of the base -mez reappears before the interrogative particle mi:
The definite past or di-past is used to assert that something did happen in the past.
The inferential past or miş-past can be understood as asserting that a past participle is applicable now; hence it is used when the fact of a past event, as such, is not important; in particular, the inferential past is used when one did not actually witness the past event.
A newspaper will generally use the di-past, because it is authoritative. The need to indicate uncertainty and inference by means of the miş-past may help to explain the extensive use of ki in the newspaper excerpt at Turkish vocabulary#The conjunction ki.
The conditional verb could also be called "hypothetical"; it is used for remote possibilities, or things one might wish for.
The various bases thus give distinctions of tense, aspect and mood. These can be briefly tabulated:

Questions

The interrogative particle mi precedes predicative endings, but follows the complete verb formed from a verbal, type-II ending:

Optative and imperative moods

Usually, in the optative, only the first-person forms are used, and these supply the lack of a first-person imperative.
In common practice then, there is one series of endings to express something wished for:

The defective verb ''i-''

The ancient verb er- #Lewis survives in Turkish in three bases:
  • imiş,
  • idi,
  • ise.
The form iken given under #Adverbs from verbs is also descended from er-.
Since no more bases are founded on the stem i-, this verb can be called defective. In particular, i- forms no negative or impotential stems; negation is achieved with the #Adverb of negation, değil, given earlier.
The i- bases are often turned into base-forming suffixes without change in meaning; the corresponding suffixes are
  • -miş,
  • -di,
  • -se,
where the y is used only after vowels. For example, Hasta imiş and Hastaymış both mean, "Apparently/Reportedly, he/she/it is ill".
The verb i- serves as a copula. When a copula is needed, but the appropriate base in i- does not exist, then the corresponding base in ol- is used; when used otherwise this stem means "become".
The verb i- is irregular in the way it is used in questions: the particle mi always precedes it:

Compound bases

The bases so far considered can be called "simple". A base in i- can be attached to another base, forming a compound base. One can then interpret the result in terms of English verb forms by reading backwards. The following list is representative, not exhaustive:
  • Past tenses:
  • *continuous past: Geliyordum "I was coming";
  • *aorist past: Gelirdim "I used to come";
  • *future past: Gelecektim "I was going to come";
  • *pluperfect: Gelmiştim "I had come";
  • *necessitative past: Gelmeliydim "I had to come";
  • *conditional past: Gelseydim "If only I had come."
  • Inferential tenses:
  • *continuous inferential: Geliyormuşum "It seems I am coming";
  • *future inferential: Gelecekmişim "It seems I shall come";
  • *aorist inferential: Gelirmişim "It seems I come";
  • *necessitative inferential: Gelmeliymişim "They say I must come."
By means of ise or -se, a verb can be made conditional in the sense of being the hypothesis or protasis of a complex statement:
The simple conditional can be used for remote conditions:

Grammars

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

    Dictionaries

  • "Etymological Dictionary of the Turkish Language." Expanded and revised second edition.
  • New edition revised and updated by Resuhi Akdikmen.
  • Redhouse Yeni Türkçe-İngilizce Sözlük. New Redhouse Turkish-English Dictionary. Redhouse Yayınevi, İstanbul, 1968.
  • Redhouse Büyük Elsözlüğü İngilizce-Türkçe, Türkçe-İngilizce. The Larger Redhouse Portable Dictionary English-Turkish, Turkish-English. Redhouse Yayınevi, İstanbul 1997.
  • Türk Dil Kurumu , ''Türkçe Sözlük, expanded 7th edition, 1983.

    Other Grammars

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