Memo about değil (Göksel - Gerslake, earlier threads):

I  değil negating nominal phrases:

değil is used for negating nominal phrases. You find it combined with –(y)di, -(y)miş and -(y)se, -dir, person markers and –(y)ken.

Nejat gençliğinde bu kadar inançlı değildi. ‘Nejat wasn’t this stubborn when he was young.’

Evde değilsin sandık. ‘We thought you were not at home.’

Anneleri evde değilken çok daha derli toplu oluyorlar. ‘They are much more tidy when their mother is not at home.’

II  değil negating verbal sentences

Sometimes değil can also negate a verbal sentence. Instead of saying simply

Her yere taksiyle gitmiyorum ‘I don’t go everywhere by taxi’

the speaker can repudiate the real or imagined assumptions of the listener saying

Her yere taksiyle gidiyor değilim. ‘It is not the case that I go everywhere by taxi.’

The next example is a combination of –me- and değil negations. Two negations make a strong affirmation:

Bu sınavlarda neden bu kadar güçlük çekildiğini anlamıyor değilim. ‘I understand why people have so much difficulties with these exams.’

III  değil in elliptic sentences

değil is one of the basic means of constituent negation in Turkish. It replaces the negative predicate in elliptic sentences which contain an identical but affirmative predicate:

Olanları görmedim değil, ama tam hatırlayamıyorum. ‘It’s not that I didn’t see what happened, it’s just that I can’t quite remember.’

Büyük değil, küçük bir elma istemiştim. ‘I hadn’t asked for a big apple but a small one.’

The Turkish ‘let alone’ construction can be constructed with the help of değil also. It is important to add değil in front of the less probable alternative. The contrasted constituent has a strong sentence stress and is followed by bile:

Değil sinemaya gitmek, televiziyon bile seyredecek zamanım yok. ‘I don’t have the time to even watch TV, let alone going to the cinema.’

yok is the Turkish way to express non-existing. It is the counterpart of the affirmative var. You will find it in possessive constructions  and in sentences which in English begin with there is/there are.

Çorbanın tuzu yok. ‘There is no salt in the soup.’

Evde bir tane bile fazla ampul yok. ‘There is not even one spare light bulb in the house.’

yok and değil can be used in double negative construction. Double negative makes affirmative:

Yok değil bu kalpte kimse. ‘Yes, there is someone in this heart.’

In the end some hindsight for those who have sometimes wondered whether to use yok or değil in sentences with a locative modifier: both will do.

Semra partide değildi/yoktu. ‘Semra was not in the party.’

I can imagine a difference in meaning but it is better that I don’t say it.

yok yok. (first one is a noun)

Could it be ´there is no lack, shortage, deficiency´?

There is no "There is no". (i.e there is nothing that cannot be found)

Often in sentences with multiple predicates only the last one carries personal and tense markers. In the following construction the –ip marking in the first predicate is a signal to the listener: go check the conjugation from the latter predicate:

Gidip şehirde çalışayım. ‘Let me go and work in town.’

The same structure works in negative sentences, too. Notice that the negative marker also comes visible only in the last predicate:

Kayınvalidem oku|y|up yaz|a|maz. ‘My mother in law can not read or write.’

In sentences where one of the predicates is affirmative and the other one negative you have to take care. The combination where the first predicate is negated is understood correctly:

Yemek ye|me|y|ip işe gid|eceğ|im. ‘I won’t eat and I will go to work.’

There is a trap in the opposite alternative. If the latter predicate is negative the first one is understood negative also if the sentence is not interrupted with de/da.

Onu gör|üp de kork|ma|mak imkansız. ‘It’s impossible to see him and not to be afraid.’

görüp korkmamak would mean ‘not to see and not to be afraid’.

(Lewis, old threads)

The negative connective ‘neither…nor’ is ne…ne (de) in Turkish. Both ne’s attach to phrases, simple or complex. de may be added after the latter one for emphasis.

Ne yabancılar ne (de) mahalle halkı otobüs turlarından memnunlar. ‘Both foreigners and local people are pleased with the coach tours.’

ne…ne can connect other sentence constituents also, like adverbials

Görüşmeler hakkında ne hükümetten, ne iş adamlarından ne (de) işçi sendikalarından bir bilgi alamadık ‘We didn’t get any information about the negotiations either from the government, the businessmen or the trade unions’

and verbal phrases:

O kitaba sadece şöyle bir göz gezdirdim, yani ne okudum ne okumadım. ‘I just took a look at that book, I mean neither read it nor didn’t read it.’

ne…ne doesn’t check if the predicate is affirmative or negative.

Bu filmden ne kadınlar ne erkekler hoşlandılar/hoşlanmadılar. ‘Both women and men liked this film.’

The second conjuct may be placed after the affirmative predicate also:

Ne yiyecek bulabildim ne de içecek. ‘I didn’t find either food or drink.’

(sources: Göksel – Gerslake, many old threads and translation tasks)

Some expressions are more at home in negative contexts than others. The use of the hiç family and kimse in affirmative sentences is restricted.

The Persian origin hiç on its own or combined with other material makes adverbs, adjectives and pronouns. The following list is from Göksel – Gerslake 2005:

hiç ‘never’, ‘ever’, ‘at all’

hiçbir (+ noun phrase) ‘no/any…’

hiçbiri(si) ‘none/any (of)…’

hiçbir şey ‘nothing’, ‘anything’

hiçbir yer ‘nowhere’, ‘anywhere’

hiçbir zaman ‘never’, ‘ever’

hiçbir koşulda, hiçbir koşul/ şart altında, hiçbir durumda ‘under no/any circumstances’

kimse/hiç kimse/hiçbir kimse ‘no one’, ‘anyone’

None of the negative meanings in the translations realizes unless there is a negation marker –mA-, değil or yok in the sentence. hiç intensifies the negation:

Kaybedeceğim hiçbir şeyim yok. ‘I have nothing (at all) to lose.’

“Hiçbir müttefik İsrail devletinden daha önemli olamaz” dedi. ‘He said: There can not be an ally more important than the state of Israel.’

Sen beni hiç hak etmiyorsun. ’You don’t deserve me.’

kimse without hiç has a negative meaning already, adding hiç stresses it:

Bugün (hiç ) kimse evinde yok. ‘There is no one at home today.’

You may find hiç in an affirmative sentence also. It is a question then:

Hiç ata bindin mi? ‘Did you ever ride a horse?’

hiç intensifies the meaning of negation markers –mA, değil and yok. Apart from hiç there are other adverbials that also modify the exact meaning of sentence negation:

artık: In affirmative and negative sentences it always marks a turning point. With –mA, değil and yok it says what once was is not any more.

Artık beklemeyeceğim. ‘I am done with waiting.’

asla, katiyen: The speaker is sure the event is never going to take place.

Karısından asla özür dilemez. ‘He is certainly not going to apologize his wife.’

Evlenmeden önce katiyen olmaz. ‘It’s definitely impossible before marriage.’

pek: The speaker wants to reduce the absoluteness of the negation.

O konuşmadan pek bir şey hatırlamıyorum. ‘I don’t remember much about that speech.’

o kadar: The utterance includes a considerable amount of negation.

Aslında dondurmayı o kadar sevmiyorum. ‘Actually I’m not fond of ice-cream at all.’

(Lewis, Göksel - Gerslake etc.)

If one of the above expressions interacting with negation is in an equivalent of an English subclause the verb of this subclause has to have negative marking:

[Ortalıkta hiç iz bırak|ma|yan] hırsız, yandaki evi de soymuş. ‘The burglar who didn’t leave any traces has also burgled the house next door.’

There is one exception to this rule:

When the subclause functions as a noun in the main clause the negative marking can be in the main clause predicate:

[Kimsenin bu kitabı okuduğu]-nu san|mı|yorum. ‘I don’t think anyone has read this book.’

What about these options? Would they be correct?

?[Kimsenin bu kitabı oku|ma|dığı]-nı sanıyorum.

?[Kimsenin bu kitabı oku|ma|dığı]-nı san|mı|yorum.

(I understand the meaning changes if we change the negation pattern, I am merely asking if the ? sentences are grammatical or not, i.e. if I have understood the rule.)

Questions with hiç or kimse are an exception to the exception: kimse in the subclause, affirmative main clause:

[Kimsenin kapıyı çaldığın]-ı duydun mu? ‘Did you hear anyone ring the door bell?’

The derivative suffix –siz denotes negation. It is a productive suffix which means that you can add it to just about any noun (or pronoun) and you will be understood and its use is not limited to certain contexts or words.

-siz makes

1. adjectives: parasız ‘penniless, free of charge’, eşsiz ‘unequalled’, sınırsız ‘unlimited’

2. adverbs: arabasız ‘without a car’, parasız ‘free of charge’, sensiz ‘without you’

3. nouns: telsiz ‘a wireless device’, Hamursuz ‘passover, the Jewish Easter’

Why are police officers called aynasız in slang?