Standard Word Order

The Turkish sentence has a standard word order -- with deviations from the norm being for clear and logical reasons
Let's look first at a sample English sentence and see how its words are ordered...
John gave me a red book in the restaurant this evening.
That sentence could be re-stated several different ways in English without it changing the meaning of the sentence. We could just as easily have written the sentence as...
This evening in the restaurant, John gave me a red book.
or...
John, in the restaurant this evening, gave me a red book.
The idea stays the same. The word order doesn't really matter in English. This is quite convenient for the native language speaker, but not very helpful if you are trying to learn English from scratch.
But in Turkish the standard word order for that sentence would be...
John... this evening... at the restaurant... to me... a red book... [he] gave.
The Turkish sentence would look like...
John... bu aksam... lokantada... bana... kIrmIzI kitabI... verdi.
(without the ellipses, of course).



________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________
Rules of Turkish Word Order

In basic Turkish sentences (like the above),
the order of the words within the sentence is generally influenced (not dictated) by two fundamental 'rules'.
Word Order Rule 1 -- This rule states that the subject comes first and is followed by expression(s) of time. Next come expression(s) of place. And, the last items are the personal and main object(s) which are followed -- at the very end -- by the verb.
Example:
Ben (subject) bugün (time-expression) Londrada (place-expression) kasagI (main object) alacagIm (verb).
I'll go buy a back-scratcher today in old London town.
But this rule is kinda loosey goosey. For example, if you've already read the article, "Do the right Turkish thing," then you already know what we're talking about. But furthermore, as we'll see in the Deviations paragraph below and also when we explore Devrik Cümlesi, this rule
gets abused with regularity.
Word Order Rule 2 -- This rule states that modifiers appear before whatever they modify.
And you can only break this rule... if you're Turkish!
Therefore, adjectives [as well as participles and qualifying nouns] precede nouns.
So it is,
a hound,
...bir av köpegi...
a brown hound,
...kahverengi bir av köpegi...
a brown running-like-hell hound,
...cehennem gibi kosan kahverengi bir av köpegi...
a brown running-like-hell Baskerville hound,
...cehennem gibi kosan kahverengi bir Baskerville'li av köpegi.
________________________________________
And, adverbs [and other verb complements] precede verbs.
Further, we hasten to add that adverbs precede adjectives too (and participles and modifying nouns) --
just about everything in fact (except maybe the subject)!
So it is,
I drove[my car],
...Ben [arabam] sürdüm...
I drove as fast as the wind,
...Ben rüzgar kadar çabuk sürdüm...
I drove as fast as the summer wind,
...Ben esen rüzgar kadar çabuk sürdüm...
I drove as fast as the summer wind that blew at 7 o'clock,
...Ben saat yedide esen rüzgar kadar çabuk sürdüm...
I drove as fast as the summer wind that blew at 7 o'clock out of Mexico,
...Ben saat yedide Meksikadan esen rüzgar kadar çabuk sürdüm...
________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________
Deviations
You may deviate from the standard rules of word order when you want to emphasize a particular word or idea in the sentence -- without the need for voice inflection. To give emphasis then, you move the word you want to emphasize to the place right before the verb at the end of the sentence.
So if we were to re-write one of our earlier example sentences as...
Bu aksam lokantada bana kIrmIzI kitabI John verdi,
...the meaning of the sentence takes on a different dimension to convey the idea that...
It was John (and not someone else -- like his wife or child perhaps) [that] gave me a red book at the restaurant this evening.
This consistency of word order can be very helpful to the starting student who is trying to "de-cipher" his first Turkish sentence -- and for us ole timers too, regardless of experience level!


i hope this article will helps us to understand the word order rules in turkish

Could you tell us the source?

http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Facility/3484/turkish-is-consistent.html#standard%20word%20order

thanks a lot, kali20

wellcome

Sometimes you can scramble the words in a way it would be hard to understand for a non-native speaker.

Example:

Yaptığını anladım o şeyi şimdi neden ben kimin.

(This can be understood by a native speaker without any problem)

Anyone (non-natives) can put them in the right order?

I'll take a wack at it:

"Ben şimdi neden kimin o şeyi yaptığını anladım."

I would translate that as, "I now understand who did that thing and why.

I'm not very confident that I understand how Turks include two interrogatives in a sentence in this fashion. The sentence more literally translated seems to be:

"I now why who that thing did understood."

"Why who..." Is this right? Can this be done in Turkish?

Looking forward to the answer from somebody smarter than me.

I think that it should be:
Ben kimin o şeyi neden yaptığını şimdi anladım
as you said:
who and why

How about making it into a question:

Ben kimin o şeyi yaptığını neden şimdi anladım?

This could be a line from a detective to his team in a TV show:

Why do I now understand who did that thing?, or more colloquially (How come I now understand who dunnit?

PS I wouldn't have got this close without the clues from taksim and aslı above!

I don't think that making this interrogative works, because you would then need the 'mı," as in "Ben.... anladım, mı?"

I forget the mI all the time while trying to speak, BTW.

No. Neden is a question in itself.

Q words:
Niçin
Neden
Ne
Nasıl
Nerede
Nereye
Kim
mı (and all other forms with vowel harmony).

e.g. neden geldi? Why did he come?
Nereye gittin? Where did you go to? do not need mi with them to make them a Q.

Sorry, forgot Kaç as another Q word!!

Also ne zaman
nereden

Well Marrione,

It would be better if we had a native speaker to weigh in on this, but I think that while neden can be a question word - and you're right, when so used, it isn't accompanied by "mı," - it's not a question here: it's the direct object.

Think of it in English:

"Why did you come?" is a question.

"I now understand why you came" is not.

Clear as mud?

It is like "because of"
Buraya gelme nedenim seni özlememdi.
I came because of ı missed you
Or the reason ı cme here ı missed you

Neden: reason cause
neden: why

BTW. these are not coming from some dictionary. Just me.

Even though "neden" is usually used instead of "...yüzünden", "dolayısıyla", "bu bakımdan", "bunun için", "sebebiyle", "verb base + -diğinden" by many people it is a wrong use. It is a question word.

For example: It would be wrong to say:

"Havanın güzel olması nedeniyle pikniğe gittik"

We must say:

Hava güzel olduğundan (= verb base + -diğinden) pikniğe gittik.

or

Hava güzel olduğu için pikniğe gittik.

A few more examples illustrating the relationship between "question words", the interrogative mı, and the question mark:

Kim bunu yaptı?
Kim bunu yaptığını biliyorum.
Kim bunu yaptığını biliyor musun?

Bu kitap, ne kadar?
Ne kadar güzel bir kiz!
Neyi istiyorsunuz?
Onun neyi istediğini biliyor musun?
Hayır, neyi istediğini söylemedi.

Sen nasılsin?
Nasıl sen böyle devram edebildin?
Nasıl senin böyle devram edebildiğini bilmiyorum!

Hangi otobüs Taksım'e gidiyor?
Bu otobüs Taksim'e gidiyor mu?
Biz Ayşe'ye hangi otobüse binmeyi gerekeceğini soracağiz.
Biz Ayşe'ye, "Hangi otobüse binmeliyiz?" diye sorduk.

Oops - we cross posted a little there. I thought I'd explain myself better.

OK... well, if you're a Turk, can you offer me some insight on this double interrogative thing? I've seen it before, and it throws me a little:

"I now know why who did it."

It's a little weird to my ear: I guess I think it needs a conjunction... like "Ben şimdi neden ve kimin bunu yaptığını anladım.

But I've seen it before... any thoughts?

OK...

So it sounds a little wierd to you, too.

Perhaps the answer to the original problem then, confining ourselves to the words our ridler provided us, is:

Ben şimdi kimin, neden o şeyi yaptığını andladım.

??

I like niçin better, too. Which is encouraging for me, at least: I'm not sure why it sounds better to me, but if it does - and you as a native speaker agree - then this language must be sinking in a little.

Thanks for your insight!

si++,

Thanks for agreeing with my alternative! I wasn't trying to correct the other (poistive meaning) of the sentence, I just was trying to suggest an alternative that would be equally correct.

Anyway, it started a great discussion about neden and questions.

On the subject of whether you can use neden as reason, for the official answer on what is good Turkish, and what is a colloquial error, I normally look at www.tdk.gov.tr, the site of the Turkish Language Commission. They have the following in their dictionary:

nedeniyle (zarf: nedeni'yle) -den ötürü, -den dolayı, dolayısıyla, sebebiyle, hasebiyle, haysiyetiyle.

In their yazım kilavuzu (guide to writing) they also show

neden neden bilimi neden sonra neden tanrıcı
neden tanrıcılık,-ğı nedeniyle nedenli nedenli nedensiz
nedense nedensel nedensellik ilkesi nedensellik,-ği
nedensiz nedensizlik,-ği

as acceptable forms of derivatives of neden.

So nedeniyle is not bad Turkish - it is approved by the TDK.

OK...

Kim anladı şimdi benzettiğini kimi nerede neden kimin?

Here goes...

Kim şimdi nerede neden kimin kimi bezettiğini anladı?

Who now where why who's resembling who understood?

Or...

Who now understands who and where who resembles who?

I think so, anyways... do you have any easy riddles?