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. More important than the words obeying these rules, there are ways these rules change the vowels in the suffixes added to words. A good understanding of these rules is necessary to be able to use suffixes, hence to be able to make correct and meaningful sentences. 3. Practical notes about vowel harmony rules As far as vowel harmony is concerned, we can separate all the suffixes in Turkish into two main groups. Thinking in terms of these two cases simplifies these seemingly complicated rules. These are: - The suffixes with first vowel -i (the suffixes -i, -di, -iyor, -im, -in ...)
- suffixes with first vowel -e (the suffixes -e, -de, -den, -erek, ...)
All suffixes you see used in words with first vowel -i, -ı, -u, -ü fall into the first group, and they are different forms of this case modified according to vowel harmony rules. All suffixes you see in words with first vowel -e, -a fall into the second group, and they are different forms of this case modified according to vowel harmony rules. No suffixes have -o or -ö as the first vowel. Actually, no suffix has the letter -ö in it and there is only one suffix that has the vowel -o (this is the suffix for present continuous tense, -iyor and this -o does not change according to any vowel harmony rules). The suffixes in the first case are affected from both the major vowel harmony and the minor vowel harmony. For example, the suffix -di can become -di, -dı, -du or -dü depending on the word at which it is appended. The suffixes in the second case are affected by only the major vowel harmony rule. For example, the suffix -erek can become -erek or -arak depending on the word at which it is appended. |
