The verb, and what is happening now

11.1 A verb's stem, and -mAk

A Turkish verb is a stem with endings after it. The stem carries the meaning: gel-, "come", yap-, "do". The endings say the rest: when, whether or not, and who.

Dictionaries list a verb with -mAk, the infinitive, English's "to" form: gelmek, "to come", yapmak, "to do". It is -mek after a front vowel and -mak after a back one, and the glosses write it INF. Take off -mek or -mak, and what is left is the stem.

The stem alone is a word too: it tells one person to do something.

A few infinitives are nouns as well. yemek, "to eat", is also "food" and "a meal":

After the stem the endings come in a fixed order: first "not", if there is one, then the tense, then the person. Gelmiyorum, "I'm not coming", is gel-m-iyor-um: "come", "not", "-ing", "I".

11.2 -(I)yor: what is happening now

-(I)yor says that an action is going on, now or these days. It is the ending of the verbs met so far, and the commonest way to talk about the present. How it joins a stem depends on how the stem ends.

• After a consonant it is -iyor, -ıyor, -uyor or -üyor, its vowel chosen by harmony: gel-iyor, yap-ıyor, otur-uyor, gör-üyor.
• After i, ı, u or ü, the stem's own vowel serves, and only -yor is added: oku-yor, tanı-yor, yürü-yor, "is walking".
• After e or a, that vowel goes, and the I takes its place, following the vowel before it: bekle- gives bekliyor, ara- gives arıyor, and söyle-, "say", gives söylüyor.

The yor itself never changes. It is one of the few endings that stand outside harmony.

Two common verbs soften their t to d before the vowel: git-, "go", becomes gidiyor, and et-, "do", ediyor. Most other stems in t keep it: bit-, "end", bitiyor. And the two short verbs ye-, "eat", and de-, "say", become yiyor and diyor.

-(I)yor covers more than English's -ing. It is also the plain present of verbs English doesn't put in -ing: biliyorum, "I know", anlıyorum, "I understand", istiyorum, "I want". It says what someone does these days, as a job or a habit. And, like English's -ing, it says what is planned for soon.

11.3 The personal endings

After -(I)yor comes the person. These are the endings that say "I am", "you are" after a noun, and since the vowel of yor is o, their vowel after it is always u.

The glosses write them as I, you, we, you.PL and they. The third person has no ending: geliyor is "he's coming", "she's coming" or "it's coming". The pronouns themselves are left out unless they are stressed.

otur- is "sit", and also "live", in a house or a town:

For "they", -lAr is added to the verb. When the subject is named and is already plural, it is often left off, and with animals and things it nearly always is:

11.4 -mA: not

"Not" is -mA, straight after the stem and before -(I)yor. It ends in e or a, so before -(I)yor it does what a stem in e or a does: its vowel goes, and the I of -(I)yor takes its place, following the vowel before it. So the verb shows -miyor, -mıyor, -muyor or -müyor: gel-m-iyor, yap-m-ıyor, oku-m-uyor, gör-m-üyor. The glosses write -mA as NEG.

A stem in e or a keeps its vowel in the negative, since -mA stands between it and yor: bekliyor, "is waiting", but beklemiyor, "isn't waiting"; arıyor, but aramıyor.

-mA never takes the stress, and leaves it on the syllable just before it: gelmiyorum is said with its weight on gel, and anlamıyorum on la.

11.5 Now, still, no longer

Words of time go near the front of the sentence, after the subject, and pin down the "now" of -(I)yor.

Turkish "drinks" a cigarette: smoking is sigara içmek.

-(I)yor is for what is going on now and in this stretch of life. For what is always so, or what someone does as a rule, Turkish also has the aorist, a tense of its own in a later chapter.

11.6 Common verbs

These twenty verbs carry a great deal of everyday Turkish.

okumak is also to study at a school or a university, and çalışmak is to work, and also to study for something, at a desk. almak is "take", "buy" and "get", whichever the sentence wants.

With vermek, the one given to takes -(y)A, "to", as in English:

Many verbs are a noun followed by etmek, "to do": teşekkür etmek, "to thank"; yardım etmek, "to help"; telefon etmek, "to phone". Only et- takes the endings: yardım ediyorum, "I'm helping".

11.7 The ending a verb wants

With most verbs, a definite object takes -(y)I. Some verbs want another ending, often where English has a plain object: the person you help or phone takes -(y)A, as does what you look at, and what you are afraid of takes -DAn. Dictionaries give the ending with the verb, as bakmak (-e), and it is worth learning with it.

ben and sen change their vowel before -(y)A: "to me" is bana, and "to you" sana. The others are regular: ona, bize, size, onlara.