Some time ago I came across this sentence:

Seni tanımayan yok ki bu şehirde.

(as far as I remember, "yok ki" was written as "yokki", but I suppose it was just a mistake ?)

I guess that the meaning of this sentence is: "There is no one who doesn´t know you in this town / city."

However, I´m not sure what is exact meaning of "ki" in this sentence, and here´s my question. I have two guesses about that meaning:

1. "ki" is hmm... "conjunction" (?) between "tanımayan" and "bu şehirde" - so when we say "someone who doesn´t know" we explain that we mean "people in this town" ?

2. Or "ki" is a kind of intensifier here, so the sentence could be translated like "BUT there is NOONE in this town who doesn´t know you !!" ?

Which one is correct here? Or maybe noone of these?

And my second and last question here - if we omit "ki" here, would this sentence be still correct and have the same meaning ?

Seni tanımayan yok bu şehirde.

Hello my friend,

I should say that "ki" is one of the most complicated structures of Turkish language. Basicly there are two kinds of "ki" in Turkish;

1) Belonging -ki

2) Conjuction ki

Belonging -ki is written with noun and it is a suffix

Evinki: the thing that belongs to home.

Benimki: mine

Conjuction "ki" is written apart:

It rained so much that streets turned into rivers:

Öyle bir yağmur yağdı ki caddeler nehre döndü.

But, we also use "ki" for "meaning emphasis, excalamation" and for "unsure tones"

Bilmiyorum: I don´t know

You say that sentence directly, without adding any stress in toning.

Bilmiyorum ki: I don´t know.

You pronounce this sentence with an "unsure" voice tone. (Adding an exclamation toning)

And an example for "meaning emphasis" :

Seni bu tanımayan yok ki bu şehirde.

ki provides "emphasis" for "yok" concept and a little "exclamation"

Let me try to explain it with another example:

Burada da hiç kitap yok : there isn´t any book in here.

You pronounce that sentence directly, expressing your view about surrounding.

But; when you say:

Burada hiç kitap yok ki.

You add "exclamation" and emphasis for "yok" concept.

Sometimes we use this structure for "but" meaning; or to emphase to "but". Likewise in "burada hiç kitap yok ki" it expresses an expectation that didn´t come true.

Yerler ıslak: Floor is wet.

Dün yağmur yağmadı ki : But it didn´t rain yesterday. (Floors may be wet because of rain but I see that it hadn´t rained.)

Yerler ıslak,

Ama dün yağmur yağmadı ki : But it didn´t raint yesterday.

Another example for that:

Sen neden yemiyorsun? : Why aren´t you eating?

Ben aç değilim ki : I am not hungry (you stress that you aren´t hungry)

I hope I could explain it. If there is any point that you didn´t get, please ask. Coz this kind of "ki" does not have a certain meaning and it gains meaning according to daily speech and stress.

thx

turkishcobra //

And daily forms for "ki". "ki" changes forms in here:

Bugün : today

Bugün + ki : Bugünkü

Bugünkü hava: Weather of today (weather that belongs today)

Dün : yesterday

Dün + ki : Dünkü

Dünkü sınav zordu: Examination of yesterday was hard. (Examination that belongs to yesterday was hard)

Gün: day

Gün + ki : Günkü

Çarşamba günkü açıklama: Explanation of Wednesday. (Explanation that belongs to Wednesay)

Note that we use days as "wednesday day, friday day...etc"

Çarşamba günü: Wednesday

Perşembe günü: Thursday

thx

turkishcobra //

Çok teşekkür ederim, turkishcobra, this is very good explanation! Now I understand it better. Thank you very much for your time and effort!

Thank you very much, upsy_daisy! Sorry for bothering, but I´m not sure if I understand all your examples. May I ask if my translations below are correct ?

b) used to show surprise:

kapağı kaldırmış ki tencere bomboş. -> A lid has been taken and saucepan is empty! (surprise / shock )

c) used to show conflict:

ben görmedim ki anlatabileyim -> I haven´t seen and I can´t explain (something like: "I haven´t seen that much to be able to explain (it)")

c) complaining, blaming:

sana da hiç güvenilmez ki! -> Nothing can be entrusted to you!

d) when placed in the end of a question sentence it shows suspicion or anxiety:

acaba ceza verirler mi ki? -> I wonder, will they (actually) punish ?

Unfortunately, I don´t know what the following sentence means. Could you (or someone else) translate it to English?

a) makes the following clause an adjective in meaning:

sen ki beni tanırsın, öyle davranabileceğimi nasıl düşünebildin?

Hi turkishcobra, thanks for the great explanation because I really struggle with this ´ki´. 

Just one question about the above example, are you saying that you can say "Yerler ıslak dün yağmur yağmadı ki" - "floor is wet but it didn´t rain yesterday" or do you need to use ´ama´ in this sentence?

Thanks, Ally

Hello Ally, you don´t have to use "ama". Because the "ki" at the end of the sentence provides this meaning but sometimes we put "ama" according to the wish; to emphasis in meaning.

thx

turkishcobra

 Thanks Ali for the quick answer.

Can I ask another question please?

In the ´Teach Yourself Turkish´ book under the -ki section it says that -ki does not change because of vowel harmony, and it give examples of ´masadaki çiçekler´ - ´the flowers on the table´ and ´onlarınki´ - ´theirs, their one´... among other examples, and it states quite clearly that it does not change.  Yet here in this thread there are examples when it quite obviously does change, so as you can imagine I´m quite confused!  Can you tell me if the examples they use in the book are right?  Or maybe this is a different part of using -ki?................ this -ki is very complicated! haha

It´s true; -ki doesn´t meet Vowel Harmony, so it doesn´t change.

I think you are talking about these three exceptions:

dünkü

bugünkü

günkü

If you are talking about these, it is because of creating easiness in pronunciation. Saying dünki is harder than saying dünkü. This is because of general speech and doesn´t break the rule. -ki does not change for Vowel Harmony. Dünkü, bugünkü and günkü are exceptions.

thx

turkishcobra //