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Word order
Turkish is subject – object – verb, and consistently head-final: the word that matters comes last. The verb ends the sentence, the noun ends its phrase, the postposition follows its noun. Read an English sentence backwards and you are often close.
SOV
Ali elmayı yedi. — "Ali ate the apple." (Ali apple-the ate) Annem bana bir mektup yazdı. — "My mother wrote me a letter."
The usual order of the rest is time, place, then manner, all before the verb:
Yarın İstanbul'a otobüsle gideceğim. — "Tomorrow I'll go to Istanbul by bus."
Because case endings mark who does what, the order can move without changing the meaning — only the emphasis.
Head-final, everywhere
| English | Turkish | literally |
|---|---|---|
| a big house | büyük bir ev | big a house |
| Ali's car | Ali'nin arabası | Ali's car-his |
| for you | senin için | you-of for |
| in the house | evde | house-in |
| I want to go | gitmek istiyorum | to-go I-want |
| the man who reads a book | kitap okuyan adam | book reading man |
The focus slot: just before the verb
The word right before the verb carries the new or contrasted information. Moving a word there is how Turkish says "it was X who…":
| Turkish | gloss |
|---|---|
| Ali elmayı yedi. | Ali ate the apple. (neutral) |
| Elmayı Ali yedi. | It was Ali who ate the apple. |
| Ali dün İstanbul'a gitti. | Ali went to Istanbul yesterday (not elsewhere). |
That is also why question words sit there: Elmayı kim yedi? "Who ate the apple?"
After the verb: afterthoughts
In speech, known or backgrounded material can follow the verb:
Geldi mi Ali? — "Has he come, Ali?" · Çok güzel bu. — "It's really nice, this."
Relative clauses come before the noun
There are no words for "who" or "which". The verb becomes a participle and the whole clause goes in front:
| Turkish | gloss |
|---|---|
| kitap okuyan adam | the man who is reading a book (-(y)en: the noun is the subject) |
| okuduğum kitap | the book (that) I read (-dik + possessive: the noun is the object) |
| dün gördüğün film | the film you saw yesterday |
| İstanbul'da yaşayan arkadaşım | my friend who lives in Istanbul |
Clauses become nouns
"That…" and "because…" clauses are turned into nouns and take case endings, before the main verb:
Geleceğini biliyorum. — "I know (that) you'll come." (your-coming-the I-know) Geç kaldığım için özür dilerim. — "I'm sorry for being late." (my-being-late for)
Two conjunctions borrowed from Persian, çünkü "because" and ki "that", allow an English-like order instead: Gelmedim çünkü hastaydım. — "I didn't come because I was ill."
Against Korean and Japanese
The three line up nearly word for word:
| Turkish | Japanese | Korean | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ali ate the apple | Ali elmayı yedi | アリが りんごを 食べた | 알리가 사과를 먹었다 |
| the book I read | okuduğum kitap | 読んだ本 | 읽은 책 |
Same order, same relative clause in front, same case marking on the nouns. They are not related languages; they simply all settled on head-final grammar.
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