Stress in a word often falls on the last syllable (stress shown in bold below).
kapı = door
araba = car
pazar = market, bazaar
Pazar = Sunday
With composite words, one of the sub-parts can take the stress:
Pazartesi = Monday [literally: Pazar + ertesi = the day after Sunday]
güzel = beautiful
güzellik = beauty
güzelliğin = your beauty
güzelliğinden = from your beauty
Proper names such as city and country names differ. Often the second last syllable takes the stress:
Istanbul
İzmir
Edirne
Nikaragua
İngiltere
An exception: Ankara
However, in a sentence (or in a phrase), normally only one of the words will have stress, indicating the focus of the sentence. The word with stress is often placed immediately before the verb.
Example: - Yesterday the door of my car was broken
Dün arabamın kapısı kırıldı - (the door)
Arabamın kapısı dün kırıldı - (it was yesterday, not today)
Dün arabamın kapısı kırıldı - (of the car I was driving, and not the door of something else)
Dün benim arabamın kapısı kırıldı - (of my own car, and not someone else's).
Note that in this case we do not drop the normally redundant benim.
Dün arabamın kapısı kırıldı - (it was broken, not scratched)
Multiple words may share stress, such as: - Paris'e de, Londra'ya da gittim - I've been to both Paris and London.
Some suffixes are stressed, some not. With each suffix in the following sections, it will be given whether it is (stressed) or (not stressed). Throughout this guide, the bold typeface, when given, will indicate which syllable in that word or sentence is stressed. A number of suffixes have two (or more) entirely different meanings and uses, one being stressed, the other not.
| suffix - first meaning (stressed) | second meaning (not stressed example) |
|---|---|
| -ler : plural arabalar = cars | yeşiller - to be (they "are") = (they are green) |
| -de,-da : in/or/at arabada = in the car | de, da - too,also araba da = the car too/also |
| -me : noun form of a verb oturma = the sitting | Negative verb - oturma = do not sit |
| -ki : that of benimki = that of me, mine | ki - that (conjunction) dedim ki = I said that |
| -sin : let him/her/it - kırsın = let him break | "to be" for second person singular (you are) zenginsın = you are rich |
| -le , -(y)le makes a verb from a noun açık = open, clear. açıkla = explain. kutu = box (noun). kutula(mak) = to box (put in) (verb). | -le, -le/-la - with - evle = with the house, kutuyla = with the box. |
|
Some of these suffixes can actually be written as a separate word, generally only to distinguish them from their other use; however these can still be considered as suffixes, as they are declined with the word they follow. | |