After this short introduction to the Turkish language and Vowel Harmony, now we will look at some examples of making words plural by adding the plural suffix “-l2´r”, and forming questions by adding the question suffix “-m4”.

We will begin to formulate the grammar rules in the simplest way. As mentioned before, for the suffix vowels, 4 will mean i, ü, ı, or u and 2 will mean e or a. (-) dash will tell us it is suffix. "__´__" will tell us about the stress which is usually on the last syllable of the word during the pronounciation.

Plural Suffix: -l2r

çocúk   (child)             çocuklár,                     év (house)                   evlér

kitáp (book)                kitaplár,                      kedí (cat)                     kedilér

yól (road)                    yollár,                         göz (eye)                     gözlér

kíz (girl)                      kızlár,                          gül (rose)                    güllér

After number the nouns  remain singular. We don’t say üç güller but üç gül.

In normal writing we don´t use dash or stresses.

Question Suffix: -m4´

As shown below, the stress comes before the Question Suffix. The rule is that the question part of the word -m4 or -m4+suffix is written separately. (Notice that the subject of all these sentences can be “he”, “she”,or “it”, depending on the context.

(o) iyí:                                   good, well, nice

(o) iyí mi?:                              good? (Is it /he/ she good?)

güzél:                                     nice, beautiful, pretty

güzél mi?:                                Is s/he  beautiful?

Zór:                                        difficult

zór mu?:                                Is it difficult?

(o) hastá          :                       (he/she is)        sick, ill

(o) hastá mı?:                           Is she/he sick?

(Please  pay only attention to the suffixe “m4.”)

Word Order

In Turkish sentences usually the subject (özne) is at the beginning, then comes the time, place, object and the verb (yüklem, fiil) is at the end. Sometimes we don´t see the subject at all, since it is included in the verb. In the litterature we can find the reversed phrases. But  this is not in our scope.

The Indefinite Article

In Turkish there is no definite article, but "bir" is used as an indefinite article without stress. "bir" as a number "one " is stressed.

bír adam :       one man

bir adam         (without stress): a man

bír ev :             one house

bir ev :             a house

"is": -D4r., "are": -D4rl2r or -l2rd4r

To explain the notation once again, we know that 4 refers to i, ü, ı, or u, so the possibilities are dir, dür, dır, dur and tir, tür, tır, tur. -D4r form is seldom used, mostly it is assumed that it is not necessary to use in colloquial language unless we wish to state a fact or to emphasize.

ne: what,  /  bu: this,  /  şu: that,  /  o: he, she, it, that

kitap: book,  /  kalem: pen, pencil

Now let´s use them.

o bir kitap. / o bir kitaptır. :                That is a book.

o ne? / o nedir? :                              What is that?

bu ne? / bu nedir? :                           What is this?

bu bir kalem. / bu bir kalemdir :        This is a pencil (pen).

If the question suffix "-m4" is used it preceeds the -D4r.

O kalem mi? / O kalem midir?                      evet: yes, hayır: no

O ne? / O kitap mı?                is the same as O nedir? / O bir kitap mıdır?

Let´s learn some simple vocabulary to make some simple sentences.

bu :      this                                                     bunlar :           these

şu :      that                                                     şunlar :            those

o :        that (further)                                         onlar :            those, they

zaman (vakit): time

ne :      what?                                               ne zaman? :      when?

ne vakit?:        when?                                   nasıl? :              how

(nerde) nerede? : where?                              kim? :             who?

kaç? :  how many, how much?                     hangi? :                     which?

niçin / neden / niye? : why?                             

When  any  question word is used as nasıl , neden  or hangi  M4 question tag is never used in the same sentence.

We don’t say :“neden gelmiyorsun mu?”-wrong

“Hangi çocuklar mı?”   is wrong

“hangi çocuklar?  “                 is right

“ Neden gelmiyorsun?”          is right           

Vocabulary

When using -l2r and -D4r together, -l2r+-D4r is more commonly used than -D4r+-l2r. When the subject is in plural form we leave the verb part of the sentence in singular form. This happens especially in short sentences.

Onlar nasıl? :                        How are they (those)?

hava :                                 Weather, air

Hava nasıl? :                         How is the weather?

Çocuklar nasıl? :                   How are the children?

Onlar nasıllar? :                     How are (they)?

iyi :                                     Good, well, nice, fine

Çocuklar iyi :                        The children are well.

Onlar iyiler :                           They are well (fine).

Ekmekler taze mi?:                 Are the breads fresh?

Evet, tazeler :                       Yes, they are (fresh)

When we wish to say these books or those houses we must remember that demonstrative adjectives must stay in singular forms.

bu kitaplar :                these books

o evler :                       those houses

şu çocuklar :               those children

If we are not using the nouns then we can say "bunlar, şunlar, onlar". They are demonstratıve pronouns.

bunlar iyi :                              these are good.

onlar eski :                              those are old.

şunlar yeni :                             those are new.

Note that if we say "bunlar iyiler" then the meaning can be different than “bunlar iyi”and it may mean "these are the good ones". Also,  "onlar eskiler" means "those are the old ones". "Bunlar yeni evler" means "these are the new houses"and "Şunlar eski kitaplar"means "Those are the old books".  In short we can say "Şunlar eski, bunlar yeni".

Bunlar ne? :                                    What are these?

Bunlar yeni kitaplar mı? :                  Are these the new books?

Bunlar mı yeni kitaplar? :                  Are these books the new ones?

(Yeni kitaplar bunlar mı?)

Bu ne kadar: How much is this?

Evet mi?:                                            Yes? (is it yes?)

Hayır mı?                                             No? ( is it no?)

Exercises. Please translate

Q: How much is this newspaper?

A: Bu gazete ne kadar?

Q: Bu kalem eski  

A: This pen is old

Q: Bunlar güzel

A: These are beautiful

Q: The wheather is good

A: Hava güzel.

Note: As the 3th person for the verb to be doesn´t have any ending, (Lesson5)  when  we say in english   "the wheather is good " =  is " in Turkish dissapears , we don´t see it. We say only "hava güzel".  Don´t look for the verb; it´s included but we don´t see it just  for the 3rd person. But we can say also "demir serttir" (The iron is hard) to be more formal. -dir adds formality, seriousness.