Başın sağ olsun.

Sigh.

There are excercises on determinative, negative and indefinite pronouns in Beginner 2 Class in this website. Much too early. I remember trying to fill the gaps a year ago, and it was mostly guessing. At that time, I just gave up and left the issue. I thought returning to these questions later would open the lock somehow. It´s not enough to know what a certain pronoun root means, you also have to know something about possessive suffixes, compounds and sentence structure in general, because these pronouns often adapt grammatically to their surroundings.

(I looked at the same test again a couple of days ago and knew what to choose this time. Well, almost...)

One of the mysterious pronouns was hep- and all that goes under it.

Hep as and adverb means ´always, entirely´: Köpeğimiz hep ayak altında ´Our dog is always underfoot´, Reklam panolarında hep kırmızı renk kullanılmış ´In the advertisement panels entirely red colour was used´. Hep becomes a pronoun when personal suffixes are added into it: hepimiz ’all of us’, hepiniz ’all of you’. As a pronoun we can conjugate it as we like: Hepimizin varlık sepebi annelerimiz ‘The reason for all of us to exist is our mothers’, Hepinize çok teşekkür ediyorum ‘Thank you so much to all of you.’

The 3^rd person sg is hepsi. To be accurate, the possessive suffix is doubled in hepsi also, but the first -i- has been lost on the road: *hep-i-si. We usually see it as the second half of a compound: Ankara’ya giden otobüslerin hepsi dolu ‘All the buses that were going to Ankara were full’, Bunların hepsi benim ‘All of these are mine’, Bu kazaların hepsi Ankara’da oldu ‘All these accidents happened in Ankara’. It also happens that the other part of the compound is not visible and the possessive suffix refers to something that the listener is supposed to understand Hepsi güzel ‘All (of them) are beautiful’. In an old translation request I found ben sadece eski bir dostu özledim hepsi o ‘I just missed an old friend, that’s all (of it).’  I googled hepsi and got a hundred pages of hits about a famous R&B girl band whose name maybe should be translated ‘all of it/them’.

The reader must wonder by now what this woman is doing. Nothing. I’m just thinking to myself. Maybe writing down what I found out would be beneficial for other learners, too. (I got the idea from si++’s comment.) Of course I hope one of the learned members bothered to correct my mistakes.

Thank you, Henry. It´s nice to hear you follow my struggling. As for most people who learned English at school, I guess, English for me was just a means to express myself and I didn´t pay much attention to my mistakes. That was before. After I came to this site, I often wish I could express myself better in English, too. Fortunately there are plenty of chances to excercise in the net. When you have your afternoon cup of coffee sitting next to the computer you can always answer to some multiple choice excercises on English grammar. Nice and relaxing (at least compared to Turkish).

Notes:

1. I had to see Ben olsam... corrected twice before I undestood that is was not a misspelling.

2. The mistake that I repeated over and over was this:

         Daha çok çalışanımız olsa, daha verimli bir şekilde çalışacaktık /çalışırdık.

It was not an accident. I still think what comes to truth conditions, there are two kinds of sentences here. In the previous example the speaker is playing with the thought of having more employees. In sentence nr 9 the conditions are different:

         Kültürleri hakkında daha çok bilsek, müzakere etmek daha kolay olurdu.

The chances for the condition to come true are over, it just didn´t happen.

The logic in these two examples is different. But of course it doesn´t mean that Turkish needs to reflect this difference in its syntax, that´s my own invention, the one that led into these mistakes.

Now I´m asking, what is the impression that a native gets from

         Daha çok çalışanımız olsa, daha verimli bir şekilde çalışacaktık ?

Is the sentence

         a) ungrammatical

         b) not equivalent to the English translation

         c) unlogical?

´Doesn´t sound good´ is an answer also, but not one that can help the learner. In my ear the worst nonsense sounds just fine.

Better in this case means that my faults are getting more logical. For your patience, si++, sağ olun.

Let´s go for it again, there is nothing to lose:

1. If you send your order by fax, we will deliver the goods immediately. Siparişinizi faksiyle gönderirseniz, malları hemen teslim edeceğiz.
2. If you invite me for lunch, I will help you with your presentation. Beni öğle yemeği için davet edersen, sunuşuna yardım edeceğim.
3. If we had more employees, we would work more efficiently. Daha çok çalışanımız olsa, daha verimli bir şekilde çalışacaktık.
4. If we delivered poor quality, we would not be the leading company in our business. Kalitesi düşük mallar teslim etsek, işte önce gelen şirket olmayacaktık.
5. If you had read the paper, you would have seen the advertisement. Kağıdı okusanız, ilani görürdünüz.
6. If I had taken the bus, I would have been late. Otobüsle gitsem, geç kalırdım.
7. If your conditions are competitive, we will place an order. Șartlarınız başkalarıyla rekabet edebilirse, bir sipariş edeceğiz.
8. If I had more time, I would do a course in business English. Daha çok vaktım olsa, iş İngilizcesi kursu görecektim.
9. If we had known more about their culture, negotiating would have been easier. Kültürleri hakkında daha çok bilsek, müzakere etmek daha kolay olurdu.
10. If you customize your CV, your chances of getting a job will be better. Özgeçmişinizi özelleştirirseniz, bir iş aldığınız daha ihtimali olacak.
11. We will have to cancel our order if you don´t deliver the goods by Friday. Malları cuma kadar teslim etmezseniz, siparişimizi iptal etmek zorunda kalacağız.
12. If Alper spoke better English, he would be able to apply for a job abroad. Alper daha iyi İngilizceyi konuşsa, yurtdışında işe başvurabilecekti.
13. If you had told me about the problem, I would have helped you. Sorun hakkında anlatsan, sana yardım ederdim.
14. I would let you know if we weren´t satisfied. Tatmin olmasak, size haberi verecektim.
15. If you execute the order carelessly, they won´t place another order with you in the future. Siparişi dikkatsız icra ederseniz, gelecekte başka bir sipariş size vermeyecekler.
16. If I were you, I wouldn´t worry about the presentation. Sen olsam, sunuş sebebiyle rahatsız olmayacaktım.

When you talk about real conditions do you mean like types I and II in the above system? (It´s dull to ask the same things always, I know, but it´s vital to understand the terminology.)

Suppose the if-clause is of the type ´there is, there are´. In which cases does var or yok have to be replaced with ol-, olma-? I see both olsaydı and varsaydı, olmasaydı and yoksaydı and I don´t know where the border is.

Hey, this thread has turned out to giving general education, too.

Besides, it shows that Turkish language planners are not going to give up easily in front of English loanwords.