About Turkish Adjectives
Position of Adjectives
Adjectives are words that describe or modify nouns - A blue house, a rich man.
The adjective always comes in front of its noun as in English.
mavi ev - the blue house
mavi evler - (the) blue houses
zengin adam - the rich man
yorgun çocuklar - tired children
But note that when adjectives follow a noun the meaning is entirely different - it becomes a statement of fact:
ev, mavi - the house is blue
evler mavi - the houses are blue
adam, zengin - the man is rich.
uzun geniş yol. - the long wide road. - is different to - uzun yol, geniş. - the long road is wide.
geniş yol, uzun. - the wide road is long.- is different to - yol, uzun geniş. - the road is long and wide.
This shows that the verb - to be - -dir - is lacking in the third person in Turkish, unless it is needed to emphasize the meaning or unless it is a public statement such as a notice etc. as follows:
Bu ev, mavidir - This house is blue
This last example is emphasized using the verb - "to be" -dir.. - is.. ,however normally -dir is not required or used in normal conversation.
Emphasized and Public Forms
uzun yol, geniştir. - the long road is wide.
uzun yol, geniş midir? - is the long road wide?
As can be seen above Turkish generally places a comma after the subject - which comes first in the word order of the sentence. The emphas is is stressed by the use of the verb - "to be" - suffix -dir (vowel haromy and consonant mutation are observed), which makes it a "statement of fact" - Yol geniştir - The road is wide
Position of the Article
bir - a, an, one - can interpose between the adjective and its noun. This has the effect of putting the emphasis on the adjective and/or causes the noun it describes to become definite.
bir güzel kız güldü - a beautiful girl laughed.
- In this example some girl or other laughed - an indefinite girl, therefore the adjective follows bir.
güzel bir kız gördüm - I saw a beautiful girl.
- In this example a definite girl was seen and moreover she was definitely beautiful - güzel followed by bir emphasizes all these points.
Generally speaking if the indefinite article is used with its noun, then Turkish will not separate them as we do in English
büyük beyaz bir ev(dir) - it is a big white house
yaşlı bir adam - an old man
boş bir kutu - an empty box
Adjectives used as Nouns
Turkish adjectives can also be used as nouns:
hasta - ill, sick
bir hasta - a patient
hastalar hastanede. - the patients are in hospital.
zengin - rich
bir zengin - a rich person
otelde kalan bir zengin var - there is a rich [person] who is staying at the hotel.
Intensified Adjectives
Many adjectives have an Intensified Form, for instance:
yeni - new - yepyeni - brand new
beyaz - white - bembeyaz - snow white
dolu - full - dopdolu - full to the brim
Many of these Intensified Forms are in daily use all the time.
Agreement of Adjectives
Adjectives do not have to agree with the noun they describe in either number - as in Spanish - or gender - as in French. The adjective precedes the noun as it does in English.
Let us reiterate the basic rules for using adjectives in Turkish
- Adjectives describe nouns.
- The adjective is always invariable.
- Adjectives don't have a singular and plural form OR a masculine, feminine and neuter form.
- Adjectives are always the same! Never add a final -s - (in English) or -lar/-ler - (in Turkish) to an adjective.
- Adjectives are placed before the noun.
- Adjectives can be formed from both nouns or verbs as in English.
- These rules apply both in English and in Turkish.
Attributable Adjectives
Often words can be recognized as adjectives by their endings. This is similar to English where we can often recognize a word as an adjective by its ending. For instance we have the ending -ful as in the word - beautiful - They built a beautiful house in the hill. Thus the -ful adjective adds the concept of beauty to the house. Of course the are other adjectival endings in English where we, as English speakers recognize instantly what type of attribute is being added by the adjective. We have used one of these adjectival endings in the heading above - Attributable. As an example we can say - "They have built a beautiful, desirable house on the hill", using the Ability Attribute -able.
Some other adjectival endings in English may be:
-ly as in the lovely view.
-ing as in the shaking branch.
-ive as in the positive result.
-en as in the broken arrow.
and some other forms; each ending giving us a differing degree or meaning in concept.
- This then is the way that Turkish follows and if one learns the Adjectival Endings it is easier to recognize the concept of meaning as we automatically do in our own tongue.
Forms of Adjectives
We have just said above that adjectives can often be recognized by their endings. These are of course words in their own right and should not be considered as words with an added suffix. As with English the (adjectival) ending on the word often points to the type of attribute that the adjective supplies to its noun. For instance in English there is a different type of attribute supplied by the adjectives - lovely, loving, loveable, lovelorn, loved .. although the root word carries the same meaning.
The Adjectival Suffix -ik -ık -uk -ük
This suffix usually forms adjectives where the described noun is in a state from which it cannot return - that is - it has assumed a permanent state.
From yanmak - to burn - the adjective - yanık is formed meaning burnt (as a permanent state)
bir düşük yaprak - a fallen leaf - [from düşmek - to fall]
bazı kırık tabaklar - some broken plates - [kırmak - to break]
kesik parçalar - cut (up) parts - [kesmek - to cut]
By recognizing the -ik suffix we can see a permanent adjectival state has been attained.
- We must take care however not to mistake nouns which end in -ik such as - balık fish - or - sözlük - dictionary as being adjectives.
A note on the Different Forms of Adjectives
If we take the first example above we should note that if we use the present participle -düşen - which falls /which is falling - as an adjective then the meaning changes:
bir düşen yaprak - a falling leaf
düşen yapraklar - falling leaves
Similarly using the past participle:
düşmüş olan - which has fallen
düşmüş olan yapraklar nemlidir - the leaves which have fallen are damp/the fallen leaves are damp.
Adjectives and their Opposites
| Adjective | Opposite | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| beautiful | güzel | ugly | çirkin |
| better | daha iyi | worse | daha kötü |
| big | büyük | small | küçük |
| cheap | ucuz | expensive | pahalı |
| early | erken | late | geç |
| easy | kolay | difficult | zor |
| free | serbest | occupied | meşgul |
| full | dolu | empty | boş |
| good | iyi | bad | kötü |
| heavy | ağır | light | hafif |
| here | burada | there | orada |
| hot | sıcak | cold | soğuk |
| near | yakın | far | uzak |
| next | gelecek | last | son |
| old | ihtiyar | young | genç |
| old | eski | new | yeni |
| open | açık | shut | kapalı |
| quick | çabuk | slow | yavaş |
| right | doğru | wrong | yanlış |