Features

Aspect is a feature that specifies duration of the action in time, whether the action has been completed, ongoing etc.

In Turkish a set of verbal morphemes alter the Aspect feature of a verb. These morphemes often affect the Tense and Mood features as well. The mapping between the suffixes and the Aspect values may sometimes be non-trivial.

The following describes the values used for Aspect together with the suffixes typically introduce the defined Aspect value. See tr-overview/special-syntax for the discussion of mapping relevant verbal suffixes to Tense, Aspect and Mood values.

Perf: perfect aspect

The action has been / will have been completed.

Examples

• eve gitti ‘she went home’
• eve gitmiş ‘she apparently went home’
• eve gidecek ‘she will go home’
• eve gitmişti ‘she had gone home (when I arrived)’

Prog: progressive aspect

Action is in progress with respect to current or a reference time.

Turkish has two progressive markers, -(I)yor and -mAktA. Latter is used in more formal cases than former. Otherwise there is no clear distinction between the two. In some contexts, both suffixes may also indicate habitual aspect (Aspect=Hab described below).

Examples

• eve gidiyor ‘she is going home (now)’
• eve gitmekte ‘she is going home (now)’
• eve gidiyordu ‘she was going home (when I saw her)’
• eve gimekteydi ‘she was going home (when I saw her)’

Hab: habitual aspect (new proposal)

Verbal morphology in Turkish may indicate an action that happens repeatedly at present or past. This aspect is mainly marked with suffix -A/Ir. In some cases, the progressive suffix -(I)yor may indicate the habitual aspect, Her sabah 5 km koşuyorum “I ran 5 km every morning”. See Göksel and Kerslake (2005, pp289–290) for details.

Examples

• çok kitap okur ‘she reads lots of books’
• sigara içerdi ‘she used to smoke’

Rapid: rapid sudden action (new proposal)

A particular verb form formed by suffix -Iver refers to actions that are sudden or performed rapidly. Kornfilt (1995, p.361) calls this rapid or sudden aspect.

Examples

• eve gidiver ‘quickly go home!’
• eve gidiverdi ‘she immediately/suddenly went home!’

Dur: durative aspect (new proposal)

A situation or action that has persisted over a period of time and still continues. This is called durative action (e.g., Kornfilt 1995, p.362). The suffixes -Akal, -Agel and -Adur indicate this aspect (the first one might better be defined as ‘durative stative’ and others ‘durative progressive’).

Examples

• bakakaldı ‘she looked (for a while, she was frozen while looking)’
• yapagelmiştir ‘she have gone on doing (something)’
• okuyadur ‘go on reading’

Pro: prospective aspect

The action is/was about to happen.

In Turkish, combination of feature tense marker -AcAk and the past tense marker -DI signal an event that was about to happen. Another (rather rare) means of expressing prospective aspect is with the suffix -Ayaz. This form is used only in a few fixed expressions, and it only combines with the past tense forms.

Examples

• düşecekti ‘she was about to fall’
• düşeyazdı ‘she was about to fall’

References

• Aslı Göksel and Celia Kerslake. Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar. London: Routledge, 2005.
• Jaklin Kornfilt. Turkish. London and New York: Routledge, 1997.

Case helps specify the role of the noun phrase in the sentence. For example, the nominative and accusative cases often distinguish subject and object of the verb, while in fixed-word-order languages these functions would be distinguished merely by the positions of the nouns in the sentence.

In Turkish, case is an inflectional feature of nouns. In some cases, numerals) may also be inflected for case when they are used as nouns. It is also valency feature of postpositions (saying that the adposition requires its argument to be in that case).

Traditionally, Turkish is considered to have 6 cases (nominative is often not listed): Nom, Acc, Gen, Dat, Loc, Abl. We also consider suffix -lA as a case suffix introducing comitative or instrumental case, and mark it as Ins (although the function may sometimes be Com in some of these cases, currently we do not distinguish the two).

Nom: nominative / direct

The base form of the noun, typically used as citation form (lemma).

Acc: accusative

Typically, accusative case in Turkish marks the definite direct object in a sentence. Indefinite direct objects do not receive the accusative suffix, but stays in bare form (Nom).

In Turkish Acc is expressed by suffix -(y)I (ı/i/u/ü/yı/yi/yu/yü).

Examples

• Kitabı okudum “I read-PAST the book” (cf. Kitap okudum “I read a book” / “I read books”)

Dat: dative

Dative case is typically used to indicate movement into/towards/to a place or time. The oblique arguments of some verbs and complements (noun phrases) of some postpositions also required to be in dative case.

In Turkish Dat is expressed by suffix -(y)A (e/a/ye/ya).

Examples

• Ankara’ya gidiyorum. “I am going to Ankara”
• Kitabı Ali’ye ver “Give the book to Ali”
• Yağmura rağmen oynuyorlar “They are playing despite the rain” (postposition rağmen “despite” requires a dative complement)
• Habere üzüldük “we are sorry/upset about the news”

Gen: genitive

Prototypical meaning of genitive is that the noun phrase somehow belongs to its governor; it would often be translated by the English preposition of. Complements of some postpositions are also required to be in genitive case. The genitive morpheme also marks the subject of the subordinate clauses.

In Turkish Gen is expressed by suffix -(n)In.

Examples

• Ali’nin kitabı “Ali’s book”
• Kitabı senin için aldım “I bought the book for you”

Loc: locative

The locative case often expresses location in space or time, which gave it its name. The oblique arguments of some verbs and complements (noun phrases) also required to be in locative case.

In Turkish Loc is expressed by suffix -DA.

Examples

• Evdeyim “I am at home”
• Toplantı ikide “The meeting is at two”
• Kendi yönteminde ısrar ediyor “He is insisting on his own method”

Ins: instrumental

The role from which the name of the instrumental case is derived is that the noun is used as instrument to do something. In Turkish, instrumental suffix -(y)lA also indicates comitative, or signal coordination of two phrases. We mark all meanings/usages as Ins. The oblique arguments of some verbs and complements (noun phrases) of some postpositions also required to carry the instrumental suffix.

Traditionally instrumental and comitative are not considered Cases in Turkish.

Examples

• Ankara’ya trenle gitti “she went Ankara by train” (instrumental)
• Ankara’ya Ali’yle giti “she went Ankara (together) with Ali” (comitative)
• Ankara’yla ilgili bir kitap “A book about Ankara”
• Bebekle ilgilenmiyor “He does not pay attention to the baby”
• Elmayla portakalı pazardan aldım “I bought the apples and the oranges from the market” (coordination)

Com: comitative / associative

We mark comitative use of -(y)lA as Ins.

Abl: ablative

Prototypical meaning: direction from some point. The oblique arguments of some verbs and complements (noun phrases) of some postpositions also required to be in ablative case.

Examples

• Ankara’dan gelmişler “The came from Ankara”
• Kitabi Ali’den aldım “I took/buy the book from Ali”
• Ali’den hoşlanıyor “she likes Ali”
• Bunlar Akara’dakilerden dolayı oluyor “All these are happening because of people in Ankara”

Degree of comparison is typically an inflectional feature of some adjectives and adverbs.

In Turkish, degree of an adjective or adverb is modified through adverbs en “(the) most” and daha “more”. We only annotate these two adverbs with the Degree feature.

Cmp: comparative, second degree

The quality of one object is compared to the same quality of another object.

Examples

• daha güzel “prettier”
• daha çabuk “quicker/faster”

Sup: superlative, third degree

The quality of one object is compared to the same quality of all other objects within a set.

Examples

• en güzel “prettiest”
• en çabuk “quickest/fastest”

(New proposal)

Evidentiality is a feature of verbs. It indicates the source of evidence for a given statement. It is often classified as a mood, but some linguists considers it an additional dimension alongside Tense/Aspect/Moodality.

Non-first-hand evidentiality is generally marked the suffix -mIş. However, in combination with other morphemes, -mIş does not necessarily mark evidentiality.

Fh: first hand

This is the default. The speaker has first-hand evidence for the statement/event.

Examples

(cf. the same examples below for Nfh)

• eve gitti ‘she/he went home’
• eve gidecek ‘she/he will go home’
• eve gidiyor ‘she/he is going home’
• eve gimeli ‘she/he has to go home’
• eve gimişti ‘she/he had gone home’

Nfh: non-first hand

The speaker has indirect evidence for the statement.

Examples

• eve gitmiş ‘(evidently) she went home’
• eve gidecekmiş ‘(evidently) she will go home’
• eve gidiyormuş ‘(evidently) she is going home (now)’
• eve gitmeliymiş ‘(evidently) she has to go home’
• eve gitmemişmiş ‘(evidently) she had gone home (by the time I arrived)’

Mood expresses the modality, a speaker’s perspective, in finite verbs. Turkish verbs may carry a wide range of mood information. Different moods are indicated by a number of suffixes, which also interact with tense and aspect of the verb.

Ind: indicative

The indicative can be considered the default mood. A verb in indicative merely states that something happens, has happened or will happen, without adding any attitude of the speaker.

Examples

• eve gidiyor ‘she is going home’
• eve gitti ‘she went home’

Imp: imperative

In Turkish imperatives are expressed by lack of any tense/aspect/modality marker. The form of imperative may indicate second or third person plural/singular. Note that, forms other than second person singular may indicate a wish rather than a command, so may be marked as Opt (see below).

Examples

• eve git ‘go home!’
• eve gidin ‘(you-PLU) go home!’
• eve gitsin ‘(I am ordering him/her to) go home!’

Prs: persuasive (new, not in UD)

Turkish has a particular form of imperative, where the request is not an order, but an attempt to persuade.

Examples

• eve gitsene ‘(please) go home’
• eve gitsenize ‘(you-PLU, please) go home’

Cnd: conditional

This expresses conditionality. It is the primary means of forming conditionals in Turkish (‘if …’). The suffix responsible for this mood is -sA. The suffix is ambiguous between Cnd and Des (see below).

Examples

• eve gittiyse ‘if she went home’
• eve gidiyorsa ‘if she is going home’
• eve giderse ‘if she goes home’
• eve gidecekdiyse ‘if she was going to go home’

Des: desiderative

This mood expresses a wish. It shares the same form as the Cnd mood. It may be disambiguated by particles (keşke: desire, eğer: condition) or by the context. For example, desires do not work well with fixed time references. In general it is difficult to automatically disambiguate between these two moods.

Examples

• (keşke) uyusa ‘I wish she sleeps’
• (keşke) uyusaydı ‘I wish she slept’

Opt: optative

Optative suffix (-(y)A) in Turkish typically combines with first person markers and expresses a suggestion. The use with second/third person markers express a wish, but it is rare. With third person singular agreement the imperative form may also express a wish or suggestion, and more common than -(y)A forms.

Examples

• eve gidelim ‘let’s go home’
• bakayım ‘let’s me see’
• gele ‘I wish he/she comes’
• gelesin ‘I wish you come’

Nec: necessitative

This expresses some sort of necessity (mush/should/have to in English).

Examples

• eve gitmeli ‘she should go home’
• eve gitmeliydi ‘she should have gone home’

Gen: generalized modality (new proposal, not in UD)

Turkish modal system includes a distinction between statements of direct experience (Ind) and statements with a more general or theoretical nature (Göksel & Kerslake, 2005, p.295). This mood is typically marked by the aorist marker on verbs, and with -DIr suffix on nominal predicates.

(NOTE: this mood interacts with evidentiality. One may consider the status of evidentiality expressed by this suffix to be “inferred”. Hence, an alternative way of marking this could be Evidential=Infer, or something similar)

Examples

• park yapılmaz ‘one does not park = no parking’
• iki, iki daha dört eder ‘two plus two is four’
• ikinin karesi dörttür ‘two’s square is four’
• Ali işe geç gider ‘Ali goes to work late’
• hastadır ‘(I hypothesize/deduce that) she must be sick’

Abil: abilitative or potentiality (new proposal, not in UD)

The suffix -Abil may indicate ability or possibility. These moods are normally distinct, and the same verb may express both at the same time (see the last example below). However, it is also very difficult to disambiguate between these two moods.

Examples

• eve gidebilir ‘she can go home’ (‘she is capable of going home’, or ‘she just may go home’)
• yağmur yağabilir ‘it may rain’
• eve gidemeyebilir ‘she may not be able to go home’ (it is possible that she is not capable of going home)

References

• Aslı Göksel and Celia Kerslake. Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar. London: Routledge, 2005.

In Turkish verbs are negated with the suffix -mA (and its allomorphs). Only exception is the verb/particle değil which functions as an auxiliary or copula (it is the main means of negating a copular clause, but it can also be used to negate a verbal clause). değil is marked as Negative=Neg when it is used as a copula or auxiliary. We use the POS tag particle when değil is used for negating non-predicates, in which case we use the feature PronType for marking its negativity.

In Turkish adjectives are normally negated by forming adjectival clauses with copula ol-, e.g., verimli olmayan “unproductive” (lit: “(something) that is not productive”). A non-productive prefix (of Arabic origin), na-, can be used for negating a lexicalized set of adjectives, e.g., namüsait “not suitable”. We (currently) do not mark adjectives for the Negative feature.

Pos: positive, affirmative

Examples

• Okuyacak “he/she will read”
• Ali doktor “Ali is a doctor”

Neg: negative

Examples

• Okumayacak “he/she will not read”
• Ali doktor değil “Ali is not a doctor”

In Turkish numbers can be cardinal, ordinal or distributive. We also mark the interrogative kaç “how many” as a number, which inflects the same way the numbers are inflected and can become ordinal or distributive.

Card: cardinal number or corresponding interrogative

Examples

• 1, 2, 3
• bir, iki, üç “one, two, three”
• kaç kitap okudun “how many books did your read”

Ord: ordinal number or corresponding interrogative

In some languages, this is a subtype of adjective or adverb. In Turkish, we mark the ordinal numerals as NUM.

Ordinal numerals are formed by the suffix -IncI. A period following a numeral may also indicate ordinal use of the number.

Examples

• 1., 2., 3.
• birinci, ikinci, üçüncü “first, second, third”
• kaçıncı kitabı okudun “which (of a series) book did your read” (answer should be something like ikinci “(the) second”)

Dist: distributive numeral

Used to express that the same quantity is distributed to each member in a set of targets.

Distributive numerals are formed by the suffix -(ş)Ar.

Examples

• birer, ikişer, üçer “one each, two each, three each”
• kaçar kitap okudunuz “how many books have you each read”

Number is an inflectional feature of nouns and other parts of speech (adjectives, verbs) that mark agreement with nouns.

In Turkish, nouns (NOUN, PROP, PRON) and verbs may have the feature Number. Note that, the number agreement between a subject noun and the predicate is not straightforward. Plural nouns agree with predicates with both singular an plural marking, but singular nouns disagree with predicates with plural marking. When subject is present, the singular form of the verb is preferred. Otherwise, obligatory the person/number agreement marker indicates the Number feature of the subject (as well as Person).

In case plurality is indicated by a modifier, the noun does not get an explicit plural marker (see example 2 for Sing).

We mark Number=Plur only if there is an explicit morphological marker.

The Nuber feature should not be confused with Number[psor], which indicates the whether possessor of a noun is singular or plural.

Sing: singular number

A single person or thing. There is no morphological marker for singular for nouns and verbs in 3rd person singular form.

Examples

• bir elma ‘one/an apple’
• üc elma ‘three apples’ – note the missing plural marker. *üç elmalar is ungrammatical.
• okudum ‘(I) read-PAST’

Plur: plural number

More than one person or thing. On nouns plurality is indicated by suffix -lAr. Plurality on verbs is indicated by a set of person/number suffixes which vary depending on the previous suffixes.

Examples

• elmallar ‘apples’
• okuduk ‘(We) read-PAST’
• Öğrenciler kitap okuyacak(lar) ‘The students will read books’ – the plural marker on the verb is optional.
• Kitap okuyacaklar ‘(They) will read books’ – Plurality of the subject is inferred from the agreement marker on the verb

In Turkish, Person is a feature of personal pronouns, and verbs. Person marking on verbs are obligatory in Turkish for all finite verb forms. The Person marker on predicates indicate the subject when there is no overt subject.

The verbal markers for person and number are composite, and their form change depending on the other suffixes attached to the verb.

The person/number marker of verbs may also be attached to the question particle -mI (-mi/mı/mu/mü), which is written separately.

METU-Sabancı treebank marks all nouns as having 3rd person agreement marker. We do not mark nouns for Person.

1: first person

In singular, the first person refers just to the speaker / author. In plural, it must include the speaker and one or more additional persons.

It is used for pronouns ben ‘I’ and biz ‘we’ and their inflected forms, and verbs with a first person plural/singular agreement suffix.

Examples

• ben ‘I’
• benimle ‘with me’
• bizimki ‘the one that belongs to us’
• (ben) okudum ‘I read-PAST’ – note the optionality of the subject
• (biz) okuyacağız ‘We read-FUT’

2: second person

In singular, the second person refers to the addressee of the utterance / text. In plural, it may mean several addressees and optionally some third persons too.

It is used for pronouns sen ‘you-SING’ and siz ‘you-PLU’ and their inflected forms, and verbs with a second person plural/singular agreement suffix.

The second person singular agreement suffix is null for verbs in imperative form.

Examples

• seni ‘you(SG)-ACC’
• sizinle ‘with you(PL)’
• sizde ‘you(PL)-LOC - on/at you(PL)’
• oku! ‘read!’
• (sen) okudun ‘you(SG) read-PAST’
• (siz) okuyacaksınız ‘you(PL) read-FUT’

3: third person

The third person refers to one or more persons that are neither speakers nor addressees.

It is used for pronouns o ‘he/she/it’ and onlar ‘they’ and their inflected forms, and verbs with a second third plural/singular agreement suffix. The third person singular agreement suffix is null in most cases.

Examples

• ona ‘he/she/it-DAT’
• onlarla ‘with them’
• (o) okudu ‘he/she read-PAST’
• (onlar) okudu(lar) ‘they read-PAST’ – note the optionality of the agreement on the verb
• okudular ‘they read-PAST’

We do not use Poss in Turkish. Possessive use of a pronoun (similar to English my, your) corresponds pronouns with genitive case suffix, e.g., benim “my”.

This feature typically applies to pronouns, determiners, pronominal numerals (quantifiers) and pronominal adverbs.

Prs: personal

Examples

• ben “I”
• sen “you-SG”
• siz “you-PL”

Rcp: reciprocal pronoun

This value covers reciprocal pronoun birbir- and its inflected forms.

Examples

• Birbirinize iyi bakın “Take care of each other”
• Akşamları birbirimize kitap okuruz “We read each other books in the evenings”

Int: interrogative pronoun, determiner, numeral or adverb

Examples:

• kim “who”
• ne “what”
• kaç “how many”
• kimin “whose”

Dem: demonstrative pronoun

Examples:

• bu “this”
• şu “that/this”
• o “that”

Loc: locative pronoun

(Not in UD)

Locative pronouns are typically distinguished from their demonstrative counterparts in Turkish.

Examples:

• bura “here”
• şura “there”
• ora “there”

We use VerbForm with non-finite verbs that function as heads of adjectival and adverbial clauses.

The verb forms that function as noun phrases (verbal nouns) are not marked with the VerbForm feature. These verb forms are considered two separate syntactic tokens. See overview/tokenization

Part: participle

Participle is a non-finite verb form which functions as adjectivals. The participles are introduced using a number of subordinating suffixes.

If the head of the relative clause is omitted (so-called “headless relative clauses”), we treat the word like a verbal noun.

Examples

• okuyacağım kitap “the book that I will read”
• Ali’nin okuduğu kitap “the book that I has read”
• okuyour olduğun kitap “the book that you are reading”

Trans: transgressive

The transgressive, also called adverbial participle, is a non-finite verb form that shares properties of verbs and adverbs. In Turkish linguistics, these words are normally called converbs. However, since the UD definition Trans covers the use of converbs, we use the same label.

• yürürken gördüm “I saw it while I was walking”
• okuyarak daha iyi öğreniyor “She/he learns better by reading”
• raporu yazılı olarak istiyorlar “They want the report in written form”
• okuyunca anlayacaksın “You will understand when you read it”

(This feature, as defined currently, cannot correctly handle voice features on Turkish verbs.) See https://github.com/UniversalDependencies/docs/issues/197 for the discussion.

Pass: passive voice

The subject of the verb is affected by the action (patient). The doer (agent) is either unexpressed or it appears as a noun phrase marked with postposition tarafından “by” or suffix -IncA.

In Turkish, a passive verb may get double passive suffixes, and intransitive verb may also be passivized. These result in a voice that is called impersonal passive. The verb’s valency is reduced to zero with impersonal passives constructions, the verb cannot have a subject. (TODO We probably need a different label for impersonal passives)

Examples

• Ev boyandı “The house was painted”
• Buradan düşülebilir “One may fall from here” (impersonal, intransitive verb passivized)
• Böyle lafa kır-ıl-ınır “[One] can be hurt by such words” (Double passive resulting in impersonal. Göksel & Kerslake 2005,p136)

Rcp: reciprocal voice

A reciprocal verb describes an event in which two agents (or groups of agents) perform the same action upon each other.

The reciprocal is expressed by the suffix -Iş however, the verb roots that can become reciprocal is limited.

Examples

• görüştüler “they meet (lit: they see each other)”

Cau: causative voice

In Turkish, that this is a feature of verbs. Not to be caused with causative case of nouns in some languages.

In causative constructions the subject is the entity “causing” the action. It generally translate to English as ‘cause/make/have/let/allow’ someone to perform action described by the main verb. Many (lexicalized) verbs that have unrelated roots in other languages are formed are related by the causative suffix in Turkish, e.g., öl- “die” and öl-dür “kill” (to cause someone to die). Causative suffix is quite productive. Multiple causative suffixes can be attached to a verb, and the number of causative suffixes are theoretically unbounded. In practice, however, the cases where more than two causative suffixes attached to a verb is rather rare. Often, two or more causative suffixes are used for emphasis and do not express multiple levels of causation.

(TODO: multiple causatives need a solution. See this issue for details.)

Examples

• Evi boya-t-tık “We had the house painted”
• Evi boya-t-tır-tık “We had someone to have the house painted”

Rfl: reflexive voice

(Currently not in UD)

A verb in reflexive voice expresses an action that the agent of the action performs on himself/herself. This should not be confused with reflexive verbs in some languages where the verb requires a reflexive pronoun (often without a clear role) in the sentence.

The reciprocal is expressed by the suffix -In. Like reciprocal, reflexive is rather unproductive, and a very limited set of verbs can take the reflexive suffix.

Example

• yıkan “to wash oneself”
• giyin “to dress oneself”