Learn how to recognize an implied subject in Turkish
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Intro |
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| Michael: Is it common to omit the subject in Turkish sentences? |
| Dilek: And why? |
| Michael: At TurkishClass101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Kerim Kandıralı is a teenager, and there is an event taking place at his school tomorrow. His mom asks him: |
| "Will [you] go to school tomorrow?" |
| Gülten Kandıralı: Yarın okula gidecek misin? |
| Dialogue |
| Gülten Kandıralı: Yarın okula gidecek misin? |
| Kerim Kandıralı: Hayır, gitmeyeceğim. |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Gülten Kandıralı: Yarın okula gidecek misin? |
| Michael: "Will [you] go to school tomorrow?" |
| Kerim Kandıralı: Hayır, gitmeyeceğim. |
| Michael: "No, [I] won't." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: Omitting the subject is possible in so-called ‘pro-drop languages.' Pro-drop languages are languages where omitting the pronoun, or the subject, does not affect the information conveyed by the sentence. English does not omit the subject, but you can observe this, for instance, in Slavic and Romance languages. |
| Turkish is also pro-drop. The verbs in Turkish change according to person and number, so, even if you omit the personal pronoun, you will still be able to understand who the subject of the conversation is. It is actually very common in spoken language. Let's have a look at some sentences where the subject can be omitted. In this sentence, |
| Dilek: [NORMAL] öğretmenim. [SLOWLY] öğretmenim, |
| Michael: the pronoun has been dropped. Could you hear it? She said, "I am a teacher," but the literal translation is "Am a teacher." If we had to keep the personal pronoun, it would sound like this: |
| Dilek: Ben öğretmenim. |
| However, the sentence still makes sense without the pronoun, so it's okay to drop it. Now, imagine if I follow that with |
| Dilek: [NORMAL] Türkçe öğretiyorum. [SLOWLY] Türkçe öğretiyorum, |
| Michael: which means "I am teaching Turkish." Again, we clearly understand who the subject is, even with the dropped pronoun. This is because the verb ending |
| Dilek: -um |
| Michael: tells us that the subject is "I." Every pronoun has a unique and different personal ending that attaches to the verb. Because every personal ending is different, it is possible to omit the subject pronouns and only keep the verbs with the proper personal endings. |
| However, there is something related that we should talk about, just in case it confuses you, and that is Turkish word order! The typical Turkish word order is Subject-Object-Verb, which means that the subject comes first, followed by an object, and then a verb. |
| However, unlike English, Turkish word order is not set in stone and can actually be quite flexible. For example, you can put an object or a verb at the beginning of a sentence: the meaning won't change, but the word you are stressing will definitely change! Turkish people order the words according to the ones they want to emphasize. Just to illustrate, listen to this sentence: |
| Dilek: Kızımı özlüyorum ben. |
| Michael: which literally means, "my daughter miss I," but translates as "I miss my daughter." This sentence is using an Object-Verb-Subject construction, instead of the usual Subject-Object-Verb construction, to emphasize the object, which is "my daughter," |
| Dilek: kızımı |
| Michael: What does this have to do with dropping the subject pronoun, though? Well, we actually use subjects only when we want to emphasize who committed the action. As with other pro-drop languages, verbs have suffixes that contain all the information we need about the subject. |
| Does it matter, then, if the sentence is reordered and the subject does not appear? Not at all because, no matter where the verb is placed in the sentence, it will contain the right suffix to indicate who the subject is. Let's listen to the sentence "I miss my daughter," this time without the subject |
| Dilek: [NORMAL] Kızımı özlüyorum. |
| Michael: Without specifically mentioning the subject, "I" or |
| Dilek: ben, |
| Michael: the sentence still means ‘I miss my daughter'—and the meaning stays exactly the same! Again, this is because the verb ending |
| Dilek: -um |
| Michael: tells us that the subject is "I." Also, Turkish nouns often have suffixes, which will help you understand who the subject is. Let's check the word meaning for "my daughter" |
| Dilek: kızımı |
| Michael: This is made of the stem |
| Dilek: kız |
| Michael: meaning "daughter," or "girl." Then, there's the first-person possessive suffix |
| Dilek: -ım- |
| Michael: which means "my," and clarifies who is talking and makes the usage of the subject unnecessary. Finally, there's the accusative ending |
| Dilek: -ı |
| Michael: which tells us that this is the object of the sentence. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Michael: Now, let's take a closer look at the dialogue. |
| Do you remember how to say "Will [you] go to school tomorrow?" |
| [PAUSE 4 SEC] |
| Selin as Gulten Kandıralı: Yarın okula gidecek misin? |
| Michael: The implied subject here is "you," or |
| Dilek: sen |
| Michael: If you express the subject, the question will be |
| Dilek: Yarın sen okula gidecek misin? |
| Michael: And here is the original question: |
| Dilek: Yarın okula gidecek misin? |
| Michael: This literally means ‘will go to school tomorrow?' but it translates as Will you go to school tomorrow?' Again, in Turkish, you can omit the subject because the verb form is inflected for number and person. |
| Here is another example. First, We will ask a question with the pronoun, and then without it. |
| Dilek: [NORMAL] Sen neredesin? [SLOWLY] Sen neredesin? |
| Michael: This means ‘Where are you?' Now, let's say it again, but we will omit the pronoun |
| Dilek: sen |
| Michael: which means ‘you'. |
| Dilek: [NORMAL] Neredesin? [SLOWLY] Neredesin? |
| Michael: After dropping the pronoun, the meaning has not changed at all. |
| [Recall 2] |
| Michael: Now, let us take a look at our second sentence. Do you remember how Kerim answers his mother |
| "No, I won't?" |
| [PAUSE 4 SEC] |
| Selin as Kerim Kandıralı: Hayır, gitmeyeceğim. |
| Michael: The word |
| Dilek: hayır |
| Michael: means "no," and |
| Dilek: gitmeyeceğim |
| Michael: is a first person singular negative conjugated version of the verb "to go," So, the sentence means something like ‘No, won't go. ' As you can hear, no subject is mentioned, but it is clear that the implied subject is ‘I', or |
| Dilek: Ben |
| Michael: In this case, we understand who the subject is because of the context of the conversation. For that reason, we do not need to explicitly express it. |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson you learned that, in Turkish, the subject can usually be dropped without losing the meaning of the sentence for two main reasons: first, because we need to inflect the verbs according to the subject, and, second, nouns often have suffixes that clarify the context. |
| Also, if the context is clear, you can drop the subject, even if there isn't any other grammar element that implies it, like we saw in the main dialogue with the sentence meaning "No, I won't" or |
| Selin as Kerim Kandıralı: Hayır, gitmeyeceğim. |
| Finally, you generally only keep the subject when you wish to be emphatic. |
| Expansion 1 |
| Michael: Remember that Turkish is a language that uses vowel harmony. This is why you will hear of more than one type of personal ending for any particular grammatical person. For example, in the first person, we have the two personal endings that you heard today. The first is |
| Dilek: -um |
| Michael: and the second is |
| Dilek: -im |
| Expansion 2 |
| Michael: Something interesting worth remembering about personal pronouns is that Turkish has a genderless grammar. In Turkish, you can address anyone and anything without addressing their gender. That is why we only say that verbs change for person and number, not for gender. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Dilek: Hoşçakalın! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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