Verbs in general.doc

Verbs in general

There are only two kinds of verbs in Turkish -- one kind ends with "mek" and the other with "mak".
These two types are extremely regular. So if you learn the conjugation of one verb of each kind,
it will serve well as the example for all other verbs of that kind.

Aorist Wide-Tense Verbs

The Turkish Aorist wide-tense doesn't have an exact English language equivalent, but it's very close to our Simple Present Tense. It is a separate tense to express habitual action, or to express an idea that is generally accepted as true. And it can cover action in the past, the present, and the future. For example, the sentence, 'Sleepy' Ripurtus always goes to bed at 9 PM, would be translated using the Aorist Wide-tense verb form, 'Uykulu' Ripurtus her zaman saat dokuzda yatar.

In Turkish, He comes will most likely be translated in the Turkish Aorist Wide-tense as, Gelir. In Turkish, He is coming will most likely be translated in the Turkish Present Continuous Simple Tense (The English Present Progressive Tense) as Geliyor.

Click here to see the (Aorist) Wide-tense conjugation of 'Gelmek' -- to come.

Participles and 'faux-participle'

Real participles, by English-language definition, have an adjective role-playing function. In Turkish, real participles always appear in close proximity to the left of the noun (or noun phrase) they modify.
Examples:
Her tuttugu isi, kolayca basardI; He succeeded rather easily at every job that he took up.
KacIrdIgIm цnemli bir sey var mI? Is there any important thing that I missed? (Did I miss anything important?)

A 'faux-participle' ('false-participle') looks almost exactly like a 'Past Personal' or 'Future Personal' Participle, but doesn't have the adjective role-playing characteristic of a 'real' participle. We prefer to think of the 'faux-participle' as having a purely verbal function (because we think we get a smoother translation that way), and we can spot them rather easily -- since they usually sit immediately to the left of another verbal construction,
Example: YakInda Hilmi'nin varacagInI biliyorum; I know that Hilmi will arrive soon.

But, a 'faux-participle' may also sit 'on its own' (without a verbal construction to its right),
Example: Bildigim kadar, Hilmi yarIn varacak; As far as I know, Hilmi will arrive tomorrow.

In neither example does the 'participle-look-a-like' word act as an adjective. So, the 'look-a-like' words are 'faux-participles'.