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Word order:
1.       pap
117 posts
 02 Jan 2007 Tue 12:17 am

There is something that is difficult for me to inderstand, what I'm talking about is Turkish word order. I can see short sentences are easy to understand but long ones are somehow difficult and confuse for me. Could anyone give me a brief explanation about that, please?
Thank you in advance.

2.       Dilara
1153 posts
 02 Jan 2007 Tue 01:04 am

Hello Pap!
As one member told me here , turkish is a FREE-FORMATTED language,
however there is one "standard" order which I am going to give you now:

The order is
SUBJECT / TIME CLAUSE / LOCATION/ OBJECT / VERB
In turkish the verb is always last in the sentence (generally speaking , there are exceptions)
EXAMPLE of s/t/l/o/v word order

" You found the money ın my house yesterday"
in turkish:
'(sen) Parayı dün evimde buldun'

Subject = You (sen) /can be omıtted/
Tıme clause = yesterday
Locatıon= In my house
Object = The money
Verb = (you)Found

Note that money ıs 'para' but THE MONEY ıs 'paraYI' wıth the 'object poınter suffıx' = yı/yi/yü/yu
Another ımportant thıng = ın turkısh ,just lıke ın englısh the adjectıve PRECEDES the noun
I hope anyone corrects me ıf I am wrong.
If you want, I can explaın thıs ın spanısh.
Any doubt just ask me!
Dilara

3.       gezbelle
1542 posts
 02 Jan 2007 Tue 01:05 am

Quoting pap:

There is something that is difficult for me to inderstand, what I'm talking about is Turkish word order. I can see short sentences are easy to understand but long ones are somehow difficult and confuse for me. Could anyone give me a brief explanation about that, please?
Thank you in advance.



generally, the word order in turkish is usually:
subject + object + verb

from there you can add:
adjective description of subject + subject + time clauses + adjective description of object + object + verb

you might like to check out:
http://www.turkishclass.com/basic_introduction.htm

or even this site:
http://www.turkishlanguage.co.uk/about.htm

i agree, short sentences are usually easier to pick out. but with longer ones, you will have to break each bit up into smaller parts to make some sense of it.

4.       duda
0 posts
 02 Jan 2007 Tue 01:29 am

Elements of the simple sentence and their order:

1) Subject 2) Adverb (time, place etc.) 3) Object 4) Predicate (the main verb)

For example:

(1) Ayşe (2) dün fakültede (3) seni (4) aradı.
(Ayşe was looking for you on the faculty yesterday.)

If you want to stress some element of a sentence, you can change the order:

Ayşe bugün size mektubumu verecek. (Ayşe will give you MY letter today.)
Ayşe bugün mektubumu size verecek. (Ayşe will give my letter to YOU today.)
Ayşe size mektubumu bugün verecek. (Ayşe will give you my letter TODAY.)
Bugün size mektubumu Ayşe verecek. (AYŞE will give my letter today.)

You see, the most important word comes just before the main verb.

You can do the same in interrogative:
Geçen sene buraya trenle mi geldiniz? (Did you come here by TRAIN last year?)
Geçen sene buraya mı trenle geldiniz? (Did you come HERE by train last year?)
Geçen sene mi buraya trenle geldiniz? (Did you come here by train LAST YEAR?)

In this case, the particule "mi" comes after the most important word.

Anyway, you should remember that adverbials and adjunctures yome before the main verb: mektubu okumak - to read the letter; birisinden korkmak - to be afraid of somebody; bir şeyde ısrar etmek - to insist on something. Also: yemeksız yatmak - to go to bed without dinner; evden çıkmak - to go out of house, askerce yürümek - to walk like a soldier, etc.

As you can see, the order goes from LEFT to RIGHT. See this example:

patronunu öldürmek - to kill (smbd's) own master
patronunu öldürmekle suçanmak - to be accused for killing (smbd's) own master
patronunu öldürmekle suçlanmaktan korkmak - to be frightened of being accused for killing (smbd's) own master
Patronunu öldürmekle suçlanmaktan korkmuş. "He was frightened that he would be accused for killing his own master."
And a bit more:
(1) Patronunu öldürmekle (2) suçanmaktan (3) korkarak (4) yurt dışına kaçmış.
(4) He flew abroad (3) being frightened (2) that he would be accused (1) for killing his own master.

Unfortunately, these are some of easier examples. But if you put the verb on the end and all the adverbs before, you can't miss.


5.       pap
117 posts
 02 Jan 2007 Tue 01:31 am

Dilara and Gezebelle thank you so much. Things are clear now.

6.       pap
117 posts
 02 Jan 2007 Tue 01:34 am

Duda thank you so much. Little by little all of you clear my doubts. I really appreciate your help.

7.       Dilara
1153 posts
 02 Jan 2007 Tue 01:39 am

Rica ederim Pap!

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