I always knew there is something wrong with gerekmek.

This is the way I learned it, modified by an infinitive, in which the possessive suffix represents the subject:

Ne yapmam gerekir?

Java teknolojisi nedir ve neden kullanmam gerekir?

If the subject is a noun, it’s going to take the genitive suffix because the inlayed clause acts as a noun in the main clause. Clear:

Türkiye´nin AB´ye üyeliğinin Kıbrıs´a bağlanmaması gerekir.

If there is a passive infinitive gerekmek works the same way except that the object is risen to the position of the subject:

Her eve girildiğinde selam verilmesi gerekir.

Bunun beyan edilmesi gerekir.

In subjectless clauses the infinitive may be with the possessive suffix or without:

Bazen de susmak gerekir duymak için.

Bilgisayar alırken nelere dikkat etmesi gerekir?

In all the above sentences I understand the subject is the –mek/-me infinitive or the structure including –mek/-me infinitive. If this was the whole story I would say gerekmek is used as a monopersonal verb. Unfortunately its easy to find many occurances of all six persons. I picked them from here and there: are they all correct use of gerekmek?

Türkiye´de çalışmak için ne gerekiyorum?

Bugün bir şey yapmadım gerekiyorum.

Yılda bir kere sağlık kontrolundan geçirmek gerekiyorum.

Facebook’un size gönderdiği e-mail e cevap vermeniz gerekiyoruz.

You shouldn´t conjugate "gerek" abla. It must be always "third person" 

I didn´t conjugate it. I found the sentences.

Where did you find them?

I googled some verb forms. There are hundreds of hits for *gerekiyorum.

Don´t trust google always.

I don´t. That´s why I am asking. I use it a lot but I always suspect. But you know, gokuyum, this is excellent news. So, gerekmek should only be used in sg 3rd, isn´t it?

Yes.

Thanks, gokuyum. There is one worry less.

does this help at all i found a file

n this example we used gerekmek in (i)yor-present tense. gerekmek always is put into the 3rd person singular, as it refers to the “doing” itself, not to the person who acts. You can combine also in the other so far known tenses.

Examples:
PAST: Dün akşam eve gitmem gerekti. = Yesterday evening I had to go home..

FUTURE: Yarın havalimanına gitmem gerekecek. = Tomorrow I’m going to have to go to the airport..

İR-PRESENT: Her gün okula gitmem gerek. = Everyday I have to go to school.

Maybe you ask now “where is the ir-suffix?". It’s not necessary as in this present tense the verb stem of gerekmek is sufficient to express the need.

Actually you could also blank out the other tense suffixes as the words dün and yarın already indicate when the actions take place.

10.1.6 Negation of "gerekmek"

For negating gerekmek you need the additional suffix -m(e), in infinitive form: gerekmemek.

Examples:
Gitmesi gerekmiyor. = He/she/it hasn’t to go.
Dün eve gitmem gerekmedi. = Yesterday I hadn’t to go home.
Yarın havalimanına gitmen gerekmeyecek. = Tomorrow you’re not going to have to go to the airport.

Very clear information. Thank you, acute.

Actually you can´t blank out past tense suffix even you use "dün". Because "gerek" without a tense suffix only express present and future. So you should use past tense suffix after gerek when the action occured in the past.

Ex: Dün akşam eve gitmem gerekti.

Does gerekmek function as a normal verb in inlayed sentences? I tried some equivalents of relative clauses to test the principle  -  they may be incorrect.

the flowers which I had to buy almam gerektiği çiçekler

the traveller who had to open her bag torbasını açması gereken yolcu

the father whose daughter had to marry the butcher kızının kasapla evlenmesi gerekmiş baba

miş makes the verb gerek adjective here. And "gerek" is the predicate of inlayed sentence.

Posted twice.

Strange...I need to think about this again.

Gitmem gerektiği zaman söyle. Tell me when I have to go.

Bitirmem gereken ödevlerim var. I have homeworks that I have to finish.

Söylemem gerekecek şey onu üzebilir. The thing I will have to say can make him upset.

We don´t use gerekir as an adjective.

Thanks, gokuyum. It was a bad question but a good answer. Some way which I don´t understand yet I see the main clause object where I expect to see the subject. I will have to stare at your examples for some while.

When something sounds weird there must be a reason for it. (I don´t need the reason but it is just interesting.)

There is one reason that is -dik doesn´t make "gerek" an adjective. It doesn´t make every verbs adjective. It chooses the one it wants

It is true.

Ex: gerektik, koştuk, güldük, etc... don´t mean anything as adjectives but bildik, alışıldık, görülmedik make sense.

Quote:gokuyum

It chooses the one it wants

I find myself often thinking this way. Just like words and linguistic elements have a character. Some are nice and flexible: whichever environment they go to they are welcomed. Others are like angry old men who smell bad and have their stubborn habits. I think there is even a basis for this kind of symbolics. Every piece of language has its history and it is there whether we recognize it or not.

Another thing about gerek- is the division of duties between the verb forms and the adjective gerek|li. Maybe gerekli doesn´t want to give the participle forms a chance to breethe.

Gitmen gerektiğini söylüyor.

gerek-dik-i-n-i

Now we see "gerek" and "dik" together. But here "-dik" with "-i" makes it a noun not adjective.  So if we add -diği to gerek we have a noun.

Ex:

1)Gitmen gerektiği belli. It is clear that you have to go.

Gitmen gerektiği is the subject of the sentence.

2)Gitmen gerektiğini söylüyor. He/she says that you have to go.

Gitmen gerektiğini is the object of the sentence.

Maybe some kind of a rule is beginning to take shape here when we sort out the examples a little bit.

The phrase containing gerek- acts as the subject of the main clause:

Gitmen gerektiği belli. It is clear that you have to go.

The phrase containing gerek- acts as the object of the main clause:

Gitmen gerektiğini söylüyor. He/she says that you have to go.

The phrase containing gerek- acts as the adverbial of the main clause:

Gitmem gerektiği zaman söyle. Tell me when I have to go.

Until here everything is simple. The problem comes when we try to use a phrase with gerek- as an attribute. These are all equivalents to English relative clauses. You can’t find –dik participle here. Instead, only participles which don’t take personal endings are used.

Bitirmem gereken ödevlerim var. I have homeworks that I have to finish.

almam gerekmiş çiçekler the flowers which I had to buy

torbasını açması gerekmiş yolcu the traveller who had to open her bag

kızının kasapla evlenmesi gerekmiş baba the father whose daugter had to marry the butcher  

Actually the only example which I cannot fit into the rule is the one with future participle (which, yes, is able to take personal endings and usually acts like –dik participle).

Söylemem gerekecek şey onu üzebilir. The thing I will have to say can make him upset.

Maybe the need of expressing future is stronger here than syntactic limitations. We don’t have but –ecek- for future, do we? Just speculating.

If a word becomes adjective it can only take possesive suffixes not personal endings. And if it takes a possesive suffix it will become a noun.

Here are the suffixes that makes verb nouns:

-an, -ası-, -mez, -ar, -dik,-ecek,-miş

Sorry, I used the wrong term maybe.

Ok, scalpel, the simpler the better. Just one thing:

 Sadly, you can find all sorts of wrong things on the internet. Just because someone wrote it, doesn´t mean it is right!

Why do you sabotage me scalpel?

Yes, Marion, it is certainly wrong but the language community doesn´t always agree about everything and it seems to me that it is a very usual misunderstanding. (Psst, *gerekiyorum often takes noun object: *Yeni bir fermuar bu palto için gerekiyorum. It looks more like a synonyme to ihtiyaç olmak.)

Just helping you  

Thank you

-en suffix is free from "time":

İşte almam gereken çiçekler bunlar. (present)

Torbasını açması gereken yolcu telaşlanacaktır. (future)

Kızının kasapla evlenmesi gereken baba üzüntüsünden kahrolmuştu. (past)

Söylemem gereken şeyler olduğunu düşünüyor. (present continuous)

Vermesi gereken parayı geciktiriyordu. (past continuous)  

Vermesi gereken parayı geciktirmesin. (imperative)

Vermesi gereken parayı geciktirirse kötü olur. (conditional)  

I believe you, scalpel, but aren´t the sentences ambiguous? What if the necessity was long gone and the main clause action is still to come?

A nice set of examples. I will copy-paste and hide it to my personal files.

Keep believing any native speaker of Turkish.. This "native speaker" either be me or gokuyum or someone else..   No, they are not ambiguous.. Why would they be?. Because of the -en suffix?. It saves you from tenses and yet you don´t like it  Even when "the necessity was long gone and the main clause action is still to come", you can use gereken safely: 

üç yıl önce ödemesi gereken borcu önümüzdeki ay ödeyecek.

As gereken is an adjective (participle ), it´s only mission is to modify the following noun.. The problem is that in this type of sentences gerek- doesn´t take -dik suffix.. But to solve the problem,if there is any, instead of gerek-, you can use zorunda ol- that, to the contrary of gerek-, it takes -dik suffix but not -en in this type of sentences:   

üç yıl önce ödemek zorunda olduğu borcu önümüzdeki ay ödeyecek.

They have the same meaning and I think the former is preferred ..

When I used the word ambiguous I didn´t mean there is something wrong with the sentence. Minimalism is the strategy of Turkish language and there are always lexical ways to make the utterance more exact when necessary (like you added üç yıl önce above).

I have a strong trust for natives, scalpel. If the first native gives me an answer that I doubt I can always ask another native... Seriously, I keep asking things only because I can´t keep in mind things that I don´t understand.

Same here!. I really do understand you.. you should keep asking till you get the answer you are looking for..  

How can I express a subclause necessity in the past when the main clause is in present tense and the subclause is

a) an interrogative content clause (indirect question)?

“Sometimes she wonders if she should have left a long time ago.”

b) a declarative content clause?

“Sometimes she thinks she should have left a long time ago.”

I am afraid it has to do with gerekmek again.

The important thing here is I started to sentence with third person then I used first person and then I finished it with a third person personal ending. This is because "diye"  function as a quote. I could use third person always but in the second sentence when I used third person in the middle it didnt make sense.

Well it makes sense now. So I could use third person everywhere in the sentences.

I have understood diye structure is always a direct quote. It is a funny, transparent piece of language but I never succeeded to use it correct until now.

gokuyum, thanks for enlightening me.

I am not sure about those sentences abla. Third person and first person both make sense. There must be an explanation for it.

Maybe the structure is on its path of grammaticalization, kind of loosing its connection with the direct quote. Maybe diye will be a dead particle in the future with no connection to demek. Just a guess.

Maybe the explanation is:

She is thinking about herself:

Bazen uzun zaman önce terketmeliydim diye düşünüyor

sometimes she thinks she should have left a long time ago

She is thinking about someone else:

Bazen uzun zaman önce terketmeliydi diye düşünüyor

Sometimes she thinks he should have left a long time ago

This is a meaningful difference.

It works :

Bazen, uzun zaman önce terketmeliydim diye düşünüyorum 

Bazen, uzun zaman önce terketmeliydin diye düşünüyorum 

Bazen, uzun zaman önce terketmeliydi diye düşünüyorum 

Bazen, uzun zaman önce terketmeliydik diye düşünüyorum 

Bazen, uzun zaman önce terketmeliydiniz diye düşünüyorum 

Bazen, uzun zaman önce terketmeliydiler diye düşünüyorum

Fine, scalpel. But the most interesting combination is the one with sg 3rd and sg 3rd because there are two possible ways to see it. What you say means that this diye part is an independent wholeness  -  it doesn´t take orders from outside.

Actually, not only sg 3rd+sg 3rd... 

A- speaker, B- 3rd person, C- listener D - 4th person

----------------------------------- ( kim terketmeliydi? )

...terketmeliydim diye düşünüyor ( A or B? ) 

...terketmeliydin diye düşünüyor ( C )

...terketmeliydi diye düşünüyor ( B or D? )

...terketmeliydik diye düşünüyor ( pl A or pl B? )

...terketmeliydiniz diye düşünüyor ( pl C )

...terketmeliydiler diye düşünüyor ( pl B or pl D ? )

As you see only the listener´s position is clear...

Using a name gets rid of the ambiguity:

bazen, Ahmet için uzun zaman önce terketmeliydi diye düşünüyor. (Ahmet =>4th person)

With "benim / bizim için" 1st person may be treated as 3rd person:

bazen, benim için uzun zaman önce terketmeliydi diye düşünüyor

But we don´t have to use diye...

gokuyum tried to save you from gerekmek.. but.. yes, it may have to do with gerekmek again

Welcome back to your nightmare!

Bazen, uzun zaman önce terketmem gerektiğini düşünüyor ( benim)

...terketmen gerektiğini düşünüyor ( senin)

...terketmesi gerektiğini düşünüyor ( kendisinin )

if it is 4th person, pronoun o used to make it clear:

Bazen, onun uzun zaman önce terketmesi gerektiğini düşünüyor

A name makes it even clearer:

Bazen, Ahmet´in uzun zaman önce terketmesi gerektiğini düşünüyor

...

But what is it that ties this necessity into the past? Is it only the adverbial of time? (The nature of necessity is future, it kind of belongs to its definition. This is what was bothering me in the first place.)

For sure you cannot force gerekmek into the past tense indirect question (type a in my question).

The suffix -dik ties it to the past.. You can remove "uzun zaman önce" from the sentence and it is still past necessity:

Bazen, terketmem gerektiğini düşünüyor.

Why can´t we?

"Acaba uzun zaman önce mi terketmem gerekiyordu diye düşünüyor."  

I don´t like gerekmek but unfortunately it seems to like me.

When I find a simple rule that fits my simple thinking I tend to capture it. Like what gokuyum recently wrote in another thread:

And now, scalpel, you say:

It´s not fare to compare two different statements from two teachers and two different contexts but you know my intention is pure and I am just trying to explain why it is difficult for me to understand how these sentences are organized on the time-line.

I am a big headache, I know. Actually I already got what I wanted to know. It doesn´t all have to be clear at once. There are threads which I can always dig from the bottom of the Language section pile when I find something new. The one with the headline gerekmek seems to have become one of them.

The longest (and most interesting) discussions are often about the minimalism and ambiguity of Turkish sentences. Turkish expressions are tied to their context in a way which is different from any other language I have learned. Some philosophy to the end:

-dık (-dik, -duk, -dük, -tık, tik, -tuk, -tük )  is one of the most widely used participle suffix (verbal noun) indicating past. One of its noticeable features is that it is almost always used with personal endings. It indicates past but it is not a tense suffix. We  always know the "tense" from the main verb (predicate)..

ne yaptığımı gördü (past)

ne yaptığımı görüyor (present)

ne yaptığımı görecek  (future)

Let´s rewrite the sentences (to help you to see time-line thing) with another participle -acak, -ecek which indicates future:

ne yapacağımı gördü (past)

ne yapacağımı görüyor (present)

ne yapacağımı görecek (future)

Do you think, for example, ne yaptığımı gördü and ne yapacağımı gördü could be of the same meaning just because their predicates both are past tense? 

I don´t think anything, scalpel. I am just trying to imitate native users, often with plenty of work and little success. What I am asking here all the time is models to follow.

I wonder if we could put it this way: the tense of the predicate tells us the point in time from which we look at the action. What is it called? Reference point? Then we choose which one of the personal participles to use:  -ecek- or -dik-. The division of labour between them, could it be

         -ecek-: future, the time after the reference point

         -dik-: everything else ?

You are already halfway up.. you will reach the peak soon.. yes, "the tense of the predicate tells us the point in time from which we look at the action." .. but the above mentioned participles are always in harmony with the tense of the predicate..

Gideceğimi biliyordu - he knew I would go

Gideceğimi biliyor - he knows I will go 

As you see in the examples above gideceğimi changes its meaning for the sake of the harmony with the tense of the predicate, but never lose its fuction indicating future..

-dik indicates past.. a thing that happened before the reference point..

Gittiğimi biliyordu - he knew I had gone

Gittiğimi biliyor - he knows I went

What confuses you is the examples like , "Onu sevdiğimi biliyor".. -dik suffix behaves the actions all the same, and gives no privilege to continuing actions.. they may be continuing but they are grammatically finished..

What about the action which is simultaneous with the predicate verb, which takes place at the time of the reference point? Isn´t it -dik- also? That´s what I suggested: -dik- covers everything else but future.

This is not the strange thing. What is odd is the Turkish use of present continuous with verbs denoting feelings. In my opinion it would be more convincing in these utterances to use the aorist which expresses this action is done at all times and it somehow belongs to the speaker´s habitus and nature?

-dik- suffix is used for past and present but it is not used for future, for future, you should use -ecek-. But if it is important to indicate the time, you can use the structures below:

example sentence: Yaptığımı biliyorsun. (probably, this would be understood as "You know that I do." by the listener.)

• for present continuous: Yapmakta olduğumu biliyorsun. or Yapıyor olduğumu biliyorsun. ("You know that I am doing.")
  
• for past: Yapmış olduğumu biliyorsun. ("You know that I did." or "You know that I have done.")

ne yaptığımı gördü and ne yapacağımı gördü could seem to be of the same meaning but ne yapacağımı gördü is actually ne yapacak olduğumu gördü and this sentence means "he saw what I was going to do" and ne yaptığımı gördü means "he saw what I did/was doing". So they are not in the same meaning actually, there is a slight difference. Also other sentences are not in the same meaning, too. Ne yaptığımı görecek: He will see what I do. Ne yapacağımı görecek: He will see what I will do.

I would like to share something about gerek. In question sentences you can use a difference structure with gerek.

For example:

• Telefonumu almam gerekiyor.
• When you will write this sentence as a question, you will probably write:Telefonumu almam gerekiyor mu?, which is the normal question structure.
• But you can also use this: Telefonumu almama gerek var mı?, this is a very common structure in Turkish.

Another example:

• Gitmem gerek. (I must go.)
• Gitmeme gerek var mı? (Must I go?), to which you can answer as "evet, gerek var" or "hayır, gerek yok".

Thank you, srhat, for your participating in this long thread which in the beginning was ment to be just a quick question.

I understand these structures are not needed most of the time but it´s good to know them. I remember just recently having wondered how to express something like this.

So, if var and yok are used, gerek must be a noun here.

Yes, you´re right. Gerek is both noun and verb. But it is not used separately in the meaning of "necessity", it is just used in constructions like gerek var/yok etc. I don´t know why, but we use "gereklilik", which is formed by turning gerek into an adj. by adding -li (gerekli) and then into a noun again by adding -lik (gereklilik), instead of it.

Good answer.. but you should have realized that my question was not meant to be answered, it was meant to promote critical thinking...by the way, if you must know, I am a native speaker of Turkish as well..

Well, I know you don´t need that answer. But don´t forget that this page can be viewed by anyone, so I wrote that for future readers of this page as I haven´t encountered anything about comparison of -ecek and -dik participles. You wrote "Do you think, for example, ne yaptığımı gördü and ne yapacağımı gördü could be of the same meaning just because their predicates both are past tense?", but didn´t mention why they are not in the same meaning, so I wanted to write why.

There is nothing to do with being a native speaker here. Maybe you are taking it personal, because I quoted your message in that answer. I quoted, because it is related to your message. So please don´t take it personal.

srhat, welcome to the forums.. enjoy it.. 

thanks.