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A quick browsing of the etymological dictionary shows a strange thing. Almost all words with the initial n- are or foreign origin. There is one basic exception: ne and its derivated forms nasıl, neden, nesne, nesnel, nice, nicelik, niçin, nite, nitekim, nitelik and niye. The uniqueness of ne is booked next to the stem itself: “Eski Türkçe olup n ile başlayan tek sözcüktür.”
The stem ne- is still basic material in interrogative pronouns. Together with the pronouns hangi- and kim- and the question particle mi it covers the area of everything that Turks need to ask one another. Plus a few other things as a bonus. As a subject of unlimited conjugation, possessing, derivation and compounding Turkish uses the possibilities of this two-letter stem to its full.
The underived case forms of ne have some special features in their use. The usual accusative form of ne is ne:
Ne duydunuz, ne gördünüz? ´What did you feel, what did you see?´
neyi is used only when the object needs to be specified (‘what exactly&rsquo or when combined with other question words (‘what and when&rsquo. ne has two dative forms: the usual dative tasks are handled with neye
Bu resim neye ait? Neye benziyor? ´What does this picture belong to? What does it resemble?´
while niye has specialized to the abstract meaning ‘why, for what purpose’:
Kendine bunu niye yaptın? ´Why did you do this to yourself?´
The ablative form neden in questions also means ‘why’ but at the same time the word has lexicalized into a synonyme of sebep ‘reason’.’
Türkiye-İsrail geriliminin nedeni budur. ´The reason for the tension between Turkey and Israel is this.´
The path into a full noun has maybe gone through a kind af meta-talk where neden represents ‘a why-question’:
bazı nedenlerin cevapları ´answers to a few why´s´.
The use of ne- with possessive suffixes opens a series of new meanings. The following expressions are tightly connected to the speak situation and I can’t see a way of translating them into English without a complicated explanation.
Bu okulun nesisin? ‘what-of-this-school are you?’
Neyin nesisiniz? ’of-what are you what-of-it?’
Plural forms of ne are typically used in exclamations, when expressing strong feelings like astonishment:
Türk kızlarının neler yapabileceğini gördük? ´What did we see the Turkish were capable of doing?´
The use of ne- in izafet groups shows that ne in addition to that of ‘what’ also covers some of the area of the English ‘which’. If ne could here be replaced with hangi…well, I don’t know.
Ne dersi var? Geometri dersi? ´Which lesson is there? Geometry?´
I guess it is usual in all languages that the most common question words in colloquial language sometimes takes the place of more specified question words. So can ne:
Ne güzel güldün bu akşam bana. ‘How beautifully you smiled to me tonight.’
Ne karışıyorsun? ’Why are you interrupting?’
The ne-family wouldn’t be perfect without compound interrogatives which learners usually get accustomed to in the very beginning (ne zaman, ne kadar, ne için > niçin, ne asıl > nasıl) and derived question words like neci ‘of what profession’, nece ‘in what language’, nice ‘(how) many’, nere ‘where, what place’. The derived forms of course can be further possessed, derived and conjugated…The most important lesson of ne is that it’s no use trying to memorize the numerous forms. Starting from the very basic level of learning one has to try to understand the structures instead.
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