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  • Writer's pictureGalina Blankenship

Two Basic Principles of Turkish Syntax and Other General Properties (As Compared to English)

Updated: Apr 16



The two basic principles of Turkish syntax are:


1. The Principle of Preceding Qualification (Head-Finality)

2. The Principle of Verb-Final Word Order (SOV)



Some general properties of the Turkish language, as opposed to the English language, are provided in the table below:

PROPERTIES

TURKISH

ENGLISH

Head-Directionality

Head-Final

Head-Initial (Complements) / Head-Medial (Modifier)

Verb Position

Verb-Final

Verb-Medial

Canonical Word Order

Subject–ObjectVERB (syntactically flexible, pragmatically fixed)

Subject–VERBObject (syntactically fixed, pragmatically depending on intonation)

Coordination

Asyndetic Parataxis preferred

Syndetic Parataxis preferred

Subordination

Nonfinite (Nominalization-Based Verbals and Postpositionals) & Finite

Finite & Nonfinite (Verbals)

Style of Describing

Verb-framed

Satellite-framed

Sentence Branching

Left-Branching (+ Mid-Branching)

Left- and Right-Branching (+ Mid-Branching)

Adposition

Postpositional

Prepositional

Subject vs. Topic

Topic-Prominent (Null-Subject)

Subject-Prominent

Information Packaging

TopicFocus–VERB–Background

Subject/Topic–VERB–Focus

Specificity

Determined by position and case marking

Determined by article: a(n), the, zero article

Grammatical Function

Determined by case marking

Determined by position within a sentence


Below, I'll explain in more detail some aspects of these principles and properties.




A painting called "Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks" by a painting by Ukrainian-born Russian artist Ilya Repin of the Zaporozhian Cossacks writing a letter to the Ottoman sultan.
Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Ottoman Sultan by Ilya Repin



I. The Principle of Preceding Qualification



The most prominent characteristic of the Turkish language is that, syntactically, it follows the so-called rectum-before-regens, or dependent-before-head, principle of phrasal and clausal structuring. In Turkish syntaxis, any qualifier precedes the qualified element, the secondary element is placed before the principal constituent, and all the words that complete the sense of (depend on) another word are placed before it, their head. This makes Turkish a head-final language.


Another term for the [dependent+head] relationship is phrase, or rather a dependent phrase, as opposed to a coordinated phrase based on an independent relationship. The common dependent phrases are verb phrases, noun phrases, adjective and adverb phrases, etc.


A phrase connected through an independent relationship, meaning that it does not have any heads or dependent elements, consists of equal, parallel items connected as a series, a compound construction, or an appositive structure.

 

The head plays a central role in defining a phrase: The grammatical category of the phrase depends on that of the head. If the most important part of the phrase, its head, is an adjective, the phrase is an adjective phrase; if the most important part of the phrase is a noun, the phrase is a noun phrase, etc. Clearly delineating the phrases helps make the structure of the sentence clearer and less ambiguous.


There are two kinds of dependents:


1. Complements (mostly obligatory)

2. Modifiers (optional), including determiners (articles, demonstratives, possessives, quantifiers)


While complements complete the meaning of their heads (and, as such, usually cannot be omitted), modifiers optionally modify their heads and, therefore, can be dispensed with.


In both Turkish and English, the common phrases with dependent complements include:

  • Verb phrases with direct and indirect objects, complement that-clauses, subject and object predicatives

  • Noun phrases with nominal complement that-clauses

  • Adjective phrases with adjectival complements (to-infinitival clauses)

  • Pre-/post-positional phrases with prepositional/postpositional complements

 

English: Head-Initial & Head-Medial


In English, complements always come after their heads, which makes English head-initial (with complements). English modifiers, however, may come before or after their heads, which makes English head-medial (with modifiers).


As a head-initial language (for complements) and a head-medial language (for modifiers), English words can have both pre- and post-dependent modifiers and post-dependent complements. The table below shows all kinds of phrases, with the heads highlighted in bold and their dependents identified in the brackets [...]:

HEAD OF PHRASE

PRE-DEPENDENT

(PRE-MODIFIER)

POST-DEPENDENT

(POST-MODIFIER)

POST-DEPENDENT

(COMPLEMENT)

VERB

Lena called

[noun as a subject]

called yesterday

[noun]

feel good

[adjective]

VERB

just called

[adverb]

called constantly

[adverb]

call it

[pronoun]

VERB

if you can, call

[conditional clause]

call when you can

[temporal clause]

say that you are OK

[that-clause as an object]

NOUN

present people

[adjective]

​(the) people present

[adjective]

(the) reason [that] he left

[that-clause]

NOUN

(the) then director

[adverb]

(the) people that we met

[relative clause]

ADJECTIVE

very tall

[adverb]

tall enough

[adverb]

glad to know

[verb phrase]

ADJECTIVE

one-meter tall

[noun phrase]

tall as me

[clause]

guilty of a crime

[preposit. phrase]

ADJECTIVE

glad about this

[preposition]

glad that you could came

[that-clause]

ADVERB

rather quickly

[adverb]

quickly enough

[adverb]

PREPOSITION

​just in

[adverb]

on it

[pronoun]

PREPOSITION

over 100

[numeral]

PREPOSITION

until recently

[adverb]

PREPOSITION

in there

[adverb)]

NUMERAL

each five

[pronoun]

five each

[adverb]


 

Turkish: Strictly Head-Final



In the head-final Turkish, in its basic syntactic units—phrases—the dependent element (or a complement) must come before its heads.


For example, compare the Turkish and English phrases with complements, with their heads shown in bold:


TR: öğrenciydik [noun (subject complement) + verb (copula)] ⟹ a verb phrase

EN: (we) were students [verb (copula) + noun (subject complement)] ⟹ a verb phrase


TR: çikolata yedi [obj.+ verb] ⟹ a verb phrase

EN: (she) ate chocolate [verb + obj.] ⟹ a verb phrase


TR: mutlu etti [adj. + verb] ⟹ a verb phrase

EN: made happy [verb + adj.] ⟹ a verb phrase


TR: işinden memnun [postposit. phrase + adj.] ⟹ an adjective phrase

EN: happy about the work [adj. + preposit. phrase] ⟹ an adjective phrase


TR: okulda [noun + locative case suffix] ⟹ a postpositional phrase

EN: at school [prep. + noun] ⟹ a prepositional phrase


TR: memnuniyet ile [noun + postposit.] ⟹ a postpositional phrase

EN: with pleasure [preposit. + noun] ⟹ a prepositional phrase


TR: sağdan ikinci [postposit. + numeral] ⟹ a postpositional phrase

EN: (the) second on the right [preposit. + preposit. phrase] ⟹ a prepositional phrase


As for modifiers, Turkish modifiers, again, come before their heads, whereas English modifiers come before and after the words they depend on:


TR: yavaşça konuş [adverb + verb] ⟹ a verb phrase

EN: ate chocolate [verb + adverb] ⟹ a verb phrase


TR: güzel okudu [adverb + verb] ⟹ a verb phrase

EN: read beautifully [verb + adverb] ⟹ a verb phrase


TR: bugün bitirdik [noun+ verb] ⟹ a verb phrase

EN: (we) finished today [verb + noun] ⟹ a verb phrase


TR: ilk olarak söyledi [converb + verb] ⟹ a verb phrase

EN: said first [verb + numeral (adverbial)] ⟹ a verb phrase


TR: belki görür [verb + verb] ⟹ a verb phrase

EN: maybe see [modal adverb + verb] ⟹ a verb phrase


TR: masadaki bardak [relativized noun + noun] ⟹ a noun phrase

EN: (the) glass on the table [noun + preposit. phrase] ⟹ a noun phrase


TR: naylon torba [qualifying noun + noun] ⟹ a noun phrase

EN: nylon bag [qualifying noun + noun] ⟹ a noun phrase


TR: yeşil kitap [adj. + noun] ⟹ a noun phrase

EN: green book [adj. + noun] ⟹ a noun phrase


TR: hep gülen yüz [participle + noun] ⟹ a noun phrase

EN: (the) face that always smiles [noun + relative clause] ⟹ a noun phrase


TR: annemin gelmesi [genitive noun + noun] ⟹ a noun phrase

EN: mother's arrival [genitive noun + noun] ⟹ a noun phrase


TR: senden daha yavaş [adjective + comparative clause] ⟹ an adjective phrase

EN: slower than you [adjective + comparative clause] ⟹ an adjective phrase


TR: beklediğimiz gibi meşgul [adjective + postpost. clause] ⟹ an adjective phrase

EN: busy as we have expected [adjective + comparison clause] ⟹ an adjective phrase


TR: çok yavaşça [adverb + adverb e] ⟹ an adverb phrase

EN: very slowly [adverb + adverb] ⟹ an adverb phrase


TR: çamur içinde [noun + postposition] ⟹ a postpositional phrase

EN: in the mud [preposit. phrase] ⟹ a prepositional phrase


TR: her ikisi [determiner + numeral] ⟹ a numeral phrase

EN: both of them [determiner + preposit. phrase] ⟹ a numeral phrase