Turkish Grammar - Parts of Speech

There are nine parts of speech (söz türleri "word-kinds") in Turkish.

1. noun (isim or ad "name");
2. pronoun (zamir "inner being", or adıl from ad);
3. adjective (sıfat "role, quality", or önad "front-noun");
4. verb (fiil "act, deed", or eylem "action" from eyle- "make, do").
5. adverb (zarf "envelope", or belirteç from belir- "determine");
6. postposition (ilgeç from ilgi "interest, relation");
7. conjunction (râbıt, or bağlaç from bağ "bond");
8. particle (edat, or ilgeç);
9. interjection (nidâ, or ünlem from 'ün "fame, repute, sound").

Postpositions are analogous to prepositions in English, only they follow their objects. Postpositions can be reckoned as particles. However, there are particles in Turkish that are not postpositions.

Only nouns, pronouns and verbs are inflected in Turkish. An adjective can usually be treated as a noun or pronoun, in which case it can also be inflected. Inflection can give a noun features of a verb such as person and tense. With inflection, a verb can become one of the following:

• verbal noun (isim-fiil);
• verbal adjective (sıfat-fiil) or participle (ortaç);
• verbal adverb (called a gerund by Lewis (1967)).

These have peculiarities not shared with other nouns, adjectives or adverbs. For example, some participles take a person the way verbs do. Also, a verbal noun or adverb can take a direct object. Some verbal nouns are not inflected forms in Turkish, but are borrowed from Arabic or other languages.

A noun or pronoun alone can make a complete sentence. For example,

köpek "dog"; Köpek. "It is a dog."

Most dictionaries list verbs in their infinitive form, which alone usually cannot form complete sentences. For example,

koşmak "(to) run".

However, instead of the infinitive, the Redhouse Turkish–English Dictionary gives the stem of a verb as its headword, and the present article follows this convention. The verb-stem is also the second-person singular imperative:

koş- "run"; Koş! "Run!"

Both a noun and a verb, without endings, can alone form a sentence.

Many verbs are formed from nouns by addition of -le. For example,

köpekle- "swim like a dog" (in any of several ways).

The aorist tense of a verb is formed by adding -(i/e)r. The plural of a noun is formed by suffixing -ler. Hence:

Köpek + ler "(They are) dogs." Köpekle + r "S/he swims (like a dog)."

Thus -ler can indicate either a plural noun or a finite verb.

Most adjectives can be treated as nouns or pronouns. For example,

genç "young" or "young person" or "the young person referred to".

An adjective or noun can stand, as a modifier, before a noun. If the modifier is a noun (but not a noun of material), then the second noun word takes the inflectional suffix -i:

ak diş "white tooth"; altın diş "gold tooth"; köpek dişi "canine tooth".

Comparison of adjectives is not done by inflecting adjectives or adverbs, but by other means (described below).

Adjectives can serve as adverbs, sometimes by means of repetition:

yavaş "slow"; yavaş yavaş "slowly".