Joining actions

18.1 And, but, because, or

Turkish has words for joining two sentences, as English has, and they stand where English puts them: between the two.

ve joins two words as easily as English's and. Between two actions, though, everyday Turkish often leaves it out and puts an ending on the first verb instead: -(y)Ip, in the next section.

çünkü begins the second sentence, as because does. Turkish also likes the other order, the reason first and then what came of it, joined with o yüzden, "so", "for that reason". yüz is "face" or "side", and o yüzden is word for word "from that side".

de or da, "too", is a word of its own, written after the word it adds. It follows harmony, but has only these two forms, whatever comes before it. It is easy to mix up with -DA, "at", which is joined to its word: evde is "at home", ev de "the house too".

ya da and veya both mean "or". To ask which of two things someone wants, though, Turkish asks twice, with mI after each:

18.2 Both, either, neither

Three pairs of words set two things side by side. One word of the pair goes before each of the two, as both and and do in English.

The second hem and the second ya usually take de or da, "too", after them, which is where ya da, "or", comes from.

With ne ... ne the verb stays as it is, with no -mA: the two ne already say no. English does the same with "neither ... nor". In speech a negative verb is sometimes heard as well, but the plain verb is the standard.

18.3 -ip: and then

When someone does two things, one after the other, English joins them with and: "I went home and cooked." Turkish more often puts -(y)Ip on the first verb, in place of its tense and its person. The last verb carries both, for the two actions.

-(y)Ip has four forms, by harmony: -ip, -ıp, -up and -üp. After a vowel, a y comes first: okuyup, "reading and", bekleyip, "waiting and". The verb git, "go", has a d before an ending that starts with a vowel, here as everywhere: gidip. In the examples, -(y)Ip is glossed and.

Each verb keeps its own object and its own place: eve belongs to gidip, yemek to yaptım. Only the tense and the person are shared, and they are whatever the last verb has: a future, a question, a request, a "let's".

The two actions usually have the same doer. For two people doing two things, Turkish uses two whole sentences, or ve.

18.4 -erek: by doing

-(y)ArAk says how something is done: by doing what, or while doing what. Its forms are -erek and -arak, and after a vowel -yerek and -yarak. It takes no endings of its own; its time is the main verb's. In the examples it is glossed by.

English often says this with -ing or by, or with a word of its own: yürüyerek, "walking", is simply "on foot".

-(y)Ip and -(y)ArAk can go on the same verb and say different things. -(y)Ip puts one action after the other; -(y)ArAk puts them at the same time, the one the way the other is done.

18.5 -ken: while

-(y)ken says that one thing happened while another was going on. On a verb it most often goes after the aorist, the tense of habits: gelir, "comes", becomes gelirken, "while coming"; yapar, "does", becomes yaparken. In the examples it is glossed while.

-(y)ken is one of the few endings that never change their vowel. It is -ken after back vowels too: yaparken, okurken. It takes no person endings, and its time is the main verb's, past or future. When the two actions have different doers, the -(y)ken clause names its own, first:

-(y)ken also goes straight onto a noun or an adjective, or a word with -DA, with no verb at all. It says "while being" or "when ... was": çocukken, "as a child", evdeyken, "while at home". After a vowel it is -yken.

18.6 -dikten sonra and -meden önce: after and before

After a noun, "after" and "before" are sonra and önce, with -DAn on the noun: dersten sonra, "after the lesson", yemekten önce, "before the meal". After a verb, Turkish says it one way for "after" and another for "before".

For "after", the verb takes -DIK, then -DAn, then sonra: geldikten sonra, "after coming". -DIK is the form the next chapter is about, and is glossed PTCP, for participle; here it is enough to learn -DIktAn as one piece. Its forms are -dikten, -dıktan, -duktan, -dükten, and after a hard consonant -tikten, -tıktan, -tuktan, -tükten.

For "before", the verb takes -mAdAn, then önce: gelmeden önce, "before coming". -mAdAn is -mA, "not", and -DAn grown together into one ending, and on its own it means "without": kahvaltı yapmadan, "without having breakfast". With önce after it, it means "before": the time when the thing is not yet done. Its forms are -meden and -madan, and the glosses write it without, as they write -sIz.

The two don't swap: there is no geldikten önce, and no gelmeden sonra. Neither takes person endings. When the doer is someone else, it comes first, with no ending: Ali gittikten sonra, ders başlamadan önce. The time, as with -(y)Ip and -(y)ken, is the main verb's.

-(y)Ip also puts one action after another, and often does the work of -DIktAn sonra. -DIktAn sonra says the order outright, and is the one to use when the two actions have different doers, or when the order is the point.

18.7 -mek için: in order to

To say what someone does something for, Turkish puts the second verb in its -mAk form, the one dictionaries list, and için, "for", after it: almak için, "to buy", "in order to buy". The glosses write INF, for infinitive, English's "to buy". The purpose comes first, and what is done for it last.

After a verb of going or coming, there is a shorter way: the verb takes -mA and -(y)A, "to": almaya, "to buy", word for word "to buying". This -mA makes a verb into a noun, "buying", and the glosses write it VN, for verbal noun; the chapter after next has more of it. It looks like the -mA of "not", but is a different ending.

18.8 The endings side by side

Each of these endings joins a verb to the one after it, and leaves the tense and the person to the last verb of the sentence.

18.9 A morning, joined up

A morning, told in five sentences. Each joins its actions a different way, and in each the last verb carries the tense and the person for the whole.

Kahvaltı yapmak, "to make breakfast", is the everyday way to say "to have breakfast", and işten çıkmak, "to go out of work", is "to leave work". In the last sentence, buluşup takes "we" from içtik: Ayşe and I met, and we had a coffee.