Turkish Sentence Structure.doc

Turkish Sentence Structure

You have to re-sequence the word order of an English sentence in order to create a correctly structured, meaningful Turkish sentence . For example, consider the following...

The restaurant where we are going to eat is
at the corner of this street.

In Spanish and French, the shape of that sentence remains the same when it's translated. And we've read that the same would be true if you translated it to Russian, Greek, and even Arabic. But in Turkish, the shape is quite different...

Yemek yiyecegimiz restoran bu sokagIn kösesindedir.
Eat-future-our-restaurant, this-street's corner-its-at-is.

Jump to the Reverse English page for a more thorough treatment of this phenomenon. Or, check out the Standard Rules of Word Order...

Var and Yok

But it's not just the unusual Turkish word order -- that English speakers need to adjust for... It's also the basic method of expression.

To illustrate what we mean, let's take a look at some examples using var and yok -- two very stand up Turkish words that every student of Turkish must understand, if not master. The meanings for var and yok are revealed in the examples...

For instance, here's the way in English that we express personal possession,
I have a forty-foot yacht. [yeah. right.]

In Turkish, you don't express it the same way. Instead, you say,
KIrk-ayak yatIm var,
which literally means,
My forty-foot yacht exists...

The negative expression,
I don't have a forty foot yacht [the truth is out],
would be,
KIrk-ayak yatIm yok,
which literally means,
My forty-foot yacht doesn't exist...

And in English, when we want to express the pure presence
[or absence] of a person, place, or thing -- we say, for example,
There is a scorpion on the wall!
[hey, i don't like'm either -- but they like the climate where I live. And that's what counts.]

However, in Turkish it's,
Duvarda akrep var;
which literally means,
On the wall, a scorpion exists.
[Negative example: There isn't any bread in the basket;
Sepette ekmek yok.]

Also, var/yok is used on those occasions when a strictly literal translation is needed -- as in,
The evidence against my client does not even exist!
And the resulting Turkish sentence is an exact literal word-for-word translation [except for the 'unusual' word order, of course],
Müvekkilimin aleyhine kanIt bile yok!

So there you have the three most basic forms of var and yok -- which are used to say:
1) have/don't have,
2) there is/there isn't,
3) it exists/it does not exist.

And many of our visitors are
probably already familiar with these forms.

But these most basic forms are not the only forms that var and yok take. Shall we look at some other forms -- with a few more illustrative examples?

Use in the Aorist (wide-time) verbal sense

Istanbul'da çok hotel vardIr;
There are a lot of hotels in Istanbul.
(Literally... In Istanbul, a lot of hotels exist.)

Please note that the -dir suffix is seen/heard mostly in written Turkish, or when the speaker wishes to express more certainty in his meaning -- as in the previous and next example...

YarIn parti yoktur;
There isn't going to be a party tomorrow.
(Literally... Tomorrow, a party won't exist.)

Also,
Bugün varIm, yarIn yokum;
I am here today, gone tomorrow.
(Literally... I exist today, I don't exist tomorrow.)

And one more use for this construction... If you're in a card game and the betting gets around to you -- you should say, VarIm, if you want to bet along with the others or Yokum, if you want to paasssss...

Use in the Present Perfect

Dünkü partide sen de varmIssIn;
You too have been (You have existed) at the party yesterday.

Bordrum gezisinde sizler yokmussunuz;
You haven't been (You haven't existed) on the Bodrum tour.

Use in the Definite Past

Ben dün toplantIda vardIm;
I was (I existed) at the meeting yesterday.

Important note:
In the above case, vardIm; I existed, could be confused with vardIm; I arrived -- one of possible cases of ambiguity in the Turkish language...
[Click here to explore that ambiguity a little further...]

Gece yarIsI sehirde kimseler yoktu;
There wasn't (There didn't exist) anyone in the city at midnight.

Use in the conditional mood

AklInIz varsa, bu ise para yatIrmazsInIz.
If you are smart, you won't pay [good] money for this [bad] job;
(Literally... If your intelligence exists, you won't pay [good] money for this [bad] job.)

Cuma günü evde yoksanIz, Pazar günü geliriz.
If you (all) won't be at home on Friday, we'll come [to see you (all)] on Sunday.
(On Friday, if you all won't exist at home, we'll come [to see you all] on Sunday.)

Questions with var/yok

Buralarda iyi bir lokanta var mI?
Is there a good restaurant around here?
(Around here, does a good restaurant exist?)

Evimizde yemek yok mu?
Isn't there any food at our house?
(At our house, doesn't any food exist?)

Proverbial Use

AskIn var ise (varsa) daglara düs;
If you're in love, flee to the mountains.
(If your love exists, fall [back] to the mountains.)...