Turkish/Nominal Sentences

In Turkish, not every sentence has to have a verb. In fact, even a single noun can be a sentence. There are two types of these sentences, copular sentences and var/yok sentences, both of which will be covered in this article. Copular Sentences In Turkish, there is no verb to be. Instead, the following suffixes are appended into a noun to convey the meaning of to be: ben (y)im purple yes I am sen sin purple yes you are o ∅ purple no he/she is biz (y)iz purple yes we are siz siniz purple yes you are onlar (ler) purple yes they are All of these suffixes are subject to vowel harmony, as explained in its article. The y in parenthesis is added if the word stem ends in a vowel. However, in the third person, no suffix is used. This means, a sentence in Turkish may be as simple as this: O bir öğretmen. He is a teacher. Speakers of Russian may be familiar with this. Pronoun dropping In Turkish, similar to many other languages, the pronoun is usually omitted while forming a sentence. The rules of pronoun dropping are rather complex, and are covered in Turkish/Pronouns. It is for now enough to know that the pronoun isn't necessary. Therefore, the following examples are completely valid: Evdeyim. I'm home. Aptalsın. You are dumb. Öğrenciyiz. We are students. Bizimlesiniz. You are with us. The suffix for onlar is used only when the pronoun is dropped. Onlar evde. They are home. Evdeler. They are home. Negative In order to negate a copular sentence, the word değil is used. Copular suffixes are appended to değil instead. Öğretmen değilim. I'm not a teacher. Zeki değilsin. You aren't smart. The word değil is pronounced /dɛjil/ in formal speech, and /diːl/ in casual speech. Questions Questions are formed with mı/mi/mu/mü, which undergoes vowel harmony, but is written as a separate word. The question particle comes before the copular suffixes, but after değil. Aptal mısın? Are you dumb? Sırada mıyız? Are we next? Öğretmen değil misin? Aren't you (a/the) teacher? var/yok Sentences There is... To say that a thing exists, we just use the word var. Vakit var. There is time. Üç çocuk var. There are three children. To say that a thing does not exist, we use the word yok. Hiç vakit yok. There isn't any time/There is no time. Evde soğan yok. There aren't onions in the house. Questions may be formed by adding the word mı after var and mu after yok. Domates var mı? Are there tomatoes? Kimse yok mu? Isn't there anyone?/Is there no one? I have... Turkish also lacks a verb for to have. Instead, we just use var/yok together with possessive suffixes. Kaç çocuğun var? How many children do you have? Literally: How many of your children are there? Yakıtım yok. I don't have fuel. Literally: My fuel doesn't exist. Noun constructs and possessive suffixes are covered in greater detail in another article.