I am no one to say, but it seems to me that you have done a pretty good job here, stumpy.

I am not well.

I am deeply depressed.

I don´t feel good.

This also makes me sad.

Don´t wait. I am no use for you.

At this point I can´t even take care of myself.

I have lots of debts here.

Very soon the distraint is going to come to my house.

If I can´t pay I will be prisoned for at least two years. (I´m not sure of this part.)

It is no use to lie to you any more.

My situation is not good now.

It also stresses me

that I cannot help you.

I will go home.

I already accepted all the ache and pain from your side as my share since the day you left.

Happy New Year 1433.

It´s childish, I know, but you know, this feeling that you sometimes get when you look at your own text...

Ok, considering that

       1. no one else will probably bother to read it

       2. you have already witnessed all my blunders during months, si++,

I guess I still have it somewhere here...(opening and closing miscellanous files). Here. Feel free to read it when you have time.

________

Modality in linguistics means expressions of possibility and necessity and the continuum between them.

In Turkish, two basic grammatical morphemes express modal functions: -meli- for ‘certainty, obligation, no choice’ and –(e)bil- for ‘ability, permission, possibility’. In addition, lexical expressions are used, such as the adjectives lazım and mecbur, the verb gerekmek ‘to be necessary’ and numerous conversational adverbials (belki, elbette).

The modal morphemes are added to the verb stem in a certain order. Closest to the stem we will find expressions of Dynamic modality (I in the table below) which concern the agent’s personal qualities or given conditions. Deontic modalities (II) are consequences of manipulation. Epistemic modality (III) works in the truth values that the speaker gives to the proposition. It hasn’t come to my knowledge that verbal expressions of dynamic and deontic modality differ in Turkish but I keep them separate because they can both have their expression in the same verb.

For more information about the definitions of dynamic, deontic and epistemic modality, see http://dinamico2.unibg.it/anglistica/slin/modgloss.htm.

I collected some examples of typical modal meanings which were handled in this discussion. Notice, that in this table only potential -(e)bil-, necessitative -meli- and negation are used.

It surprised me to see how logical the system is and how the three-button-game (bil, meli, NEG) is played. Not every possible combination, though, is really used in language.

But there is still one joker: certain modal meanings can only be expressed with the help of lexical elements: koşmak zorunda kalabilir, bunu yapması lazım değil and gitmemeli değil rose up in this discussion. The simple table explains them also. You see, whatever combination there is of the three types of modality, –meli- is the last element on the right. Nothing follows it, not even negation. So,

         16. koşmak zorunda kalabilir ‘he may have to run’ ≠ koş + meli + bil

         17. bunu yapması lazım değil ‘he doesn’t have to do this’ ≠ yap + meli + NEG

         18. gitmemeli değil: ‘it’s not necessary for him not to go’ ≠ git + NEG + meli + NEG

because in this simple system of three options –meli- cannot be followed by anything. That’s why roundabout (lexical) expressions have to be used instead.

I don´t know, don´t ask me. The more I looked at it the more stupid it seemed. And I prefer not to look (so very) stupid.

...and actually we could  -  within the limits of good taste  -  work on the translation texts also so that our customer would end up with the best possible result for the rest of her life.

...unless we want to open a new section with translation, maxims and trivial philosophy combined. People would come with their troubles and we would provide them with both translation and life instructions. This way we could easily double the amount of customers. I could volunteer to be the chief of that section. It would be the end of love rats and playboy waiters.

acute, this is a good question and I even know the answer to it. But this is not the place. It is against a translator´s ethics to peek or comment anything that comes to his eyes at work.

Friendship is like a river that flows between two hearts, it cleans both the place it goes to and the place it comes from.