[Home] [Table of Contents] [Comments]


color bar

LPT SymbolTurkish Verbal Factoids whats new

This n' that about the Turkish Verbs and verb-related grammar points...

color bar

Click Here!

Verbs in General
(Aorist) Wide-tense Verbs
Participles and 'faux-participle'
More to Come!!

Verbs in general
There are only two kinds of verbs in Turkish -- one kind ends with "mek" and the other with "mak".
These two types are extremely regular. So if you learn the conjugation of one verb of each kind,
it will serve well as the example for all other verbs of that kind.

color bar

Aorist Wide-Tense Verbs
The Turkish Aorist wide-tense doesn't have an exact English language equivalent, but it's very close to our Simple Present Tense. It is a separate tense to express habitual action, or to express an idea that is generally accepted as true. And it can cover action in the past, the present, and the future. For example, the sentence, 'Sleepy' Ripurtus always goes to bed at 9 PM, would be translated using the Aorist Wide-tense verb form, 'Uykulu' Ripurtus her zaman saat dokuzda yatar.
In Turkish, He comes will most likely be translated in the Turkish Aorist Wide-tense as, Gelir. In Turkish, He is coming will most likely be translated in the Turkish Present Continuous Simple Tense (The English Present Progressive Tense) as Geliyor.
Click here to see the (Aorist) Wide-tense conjugation of 'Gelmek' -- to come.

color bar

Participles and 'faux-participle'
Real participles, by English-language definition, have an adjective role-playing function. In Turkish, real participles always appear in close proximity to the left of the noun (or noun phrase) they modify.
Examples:
Her tuttugu isi, kolayca basardI; He succeeded rather easily at every job that he took up.
KacIrdIgIm önemli bir sey var mI? Is there any important thing that I missed? (Did I miss anything important?)
A 'faux-participle' ('false-participle') looks almost exactly like a 'Past Personal' or 'Future Personal' Participle, but doesn't have the adjective role-playing characteristic of a 'real' participle. We prefer to think of the 'faux-participle' as having a purely verbal function (because we think we get a smoother translation that way), and we can spot them rather easily -- since they usually sit immediately to the left of another verbal construction,
Example: YakInda Hilmi'nin varacagInI biliyorum; I know that Hilmi will arrive soon.

But, a 'faux-participle' may also sit 'on its own' (without a verbal construction to its right),
Example: Bildigim kadar, Hilmi yarIn varacak; As far as I know, Hilmi will arrive tomorrow.

In neither example does the 'participle-look-a-like' word act as an adjective. So, the 'look-a-like' words are 'faux-participles'.

Click the next hyper-link to see another example of a 'faux-participle'. And another...
And, to see yet another, click here.

color bar

color bar

[Home] [Contents] [Mail us]Please email us and tell us how we can improve the Learning Practical Turkish Web site.