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Pronouns & Basic Sentence Structure
Personal pronouns, SOV word order, the copula, basic equational sentences
Reflexive pronoun: kendi
self / oneself
ken-dee
Kendim (myself), kendin (yourself), kendi (himself/herself/itself)
Pronoun case forms
personal pronouns in all six cases
varies
Ben/beni/bana/bende/benden/benim -- full paradigm for I
Reciprocal: birbirimiz
each other
beer-bee-ree-meez
Birbirimizi seviyoruz = We love each other
Relative pronouns: ki
that/which (limited use)
kee
Derived from Persian; biliyorum ki = I know that; not used like English that
Indefinite pronouns: hiç, hiçbir
none, no (one/thing)
heech, heech-beer
Hiçbir şey = nothing; hiç kimse = nobody; require negative verb
Emphatic pronoun: ben de / sen de
I also / you also
behn deh / sehn deh
De/da = also/too; cliticizes to preceding word by vowel harmony
Question words in case forms
kim, ne, nere in different cases
varies
Kime (to whom), neden (from what/why), nerede (where at)
Word order flexibility
SOV is default; other orders for emphasis
varies
Topic comes first; focus before verb; Turkish is relatively flexible
Sentence-final particles: ya, işte, hani
discourse/sentence particles
yah, ish-teh, hah-nee
İşte = there you go/here it is; hani = so where is/I thought...
Subject drop: pro-drop language
Turkish drops subject pronoun when clear from context
varies
Gidiyorum = (I) am going; pronoun recoverable from personal ending