Turkish Adjectives.doc

Turkish Adjectives

Ordinary uses of Adjectives

The other morning, we were careening down the road toward the Aegean coastal resort town of KusadasI in a beat-up dolmus – thinking about Turkish adjectives.

That may sound a little strange to you, but you have to realize
that the alternative to thinking about Turkish adjectives was
thinking about the danger we were in --
as we careened down the road in a beat-up dolmus!!!
It was not a happy choice of thoughts...

Click here to learn what Driving in Turkey is really like…

Anyway…a particularly nasty bump in the road bounced us such that our head came to rest on the shoulder of a fellow passenger, two seats over and one row back. And we couldn’t help noticing the opening paragraph of the novel she was trying to read…

"As I awoke, my bloated head throbbed painfully from the cheap red wine of the awful night before. It was a dank steamy morning; the sopping wet bedsheets clung to my aching body and as I removed the edge of the spit-stained pillow from my sputtering mouth, I tasted dirty duck-feather. A subdued light peeked through the swamp-green curtains. And when I reached out my shaking hand to stroke my boyfriend’s shapely butt, I felt a rough furry texture that emitted a muffled ‘oink’. Something was wrong…"

Are those red words the adjectives, Marvin?
Don't bother me, Mabel. I'm concentrating on the literature.

As you look at that English-language paragraph now, you probably notice that the adjectives perform ordinary ‘modification’ of ordinary nouns, and help to give the nouns a little more life. Well, you can use Turkish adjectives in the same ordinary way. For example,

HIzlI kahverengi köpek yavas budala postacIyI IsIrdI.
(The quick brown pooch bit the slow foolish mailman.)

But, as in English, Turkish adjectives may be used in more interesting ways…

Adjectives used in comparative situations

Expressing inequality and equality…

When there is general inequality between (among) compared items, use ‘-den/dan daha’ (more) or ‘-den/dan daha az’ (less) together with the ordinary adjective…

Bradley, Brunhilde’den daha çalIskandIr -- Bradley is more industrious than Brunhilde.

Bradley, Brunhilde’den daha az çalIskandIr -- Bradley is less industrious than Brunhilde.

Bradley, Brunhilde ve Benjamin’den daha çalIskandIr -- Bradley is more industrious than [both] Brunhilde and Benjamin.

Please, tell me about the other uses of the suffix ‘-den/dan’…

If one of the compared items is definitely superior (or inferior) to the other(s), you’ll normally use ‘en’ together with the adjective…

Bradley en sisman ögrencidir – Bradley is the fattest (most fat) student.

Brunhilde en gülünç ögrencidir – Brunhilde is the funniest (most comical) student.

En güzel ve en güvenli araba edseldir – The best looking and safest car is the Edsel. burp ø¤°`°¤ø,¸¸,ø¤°

Here’s a little chart that demonstrates the ‘unequal’ comparative use of Turkish adjectives:

When there is equality between (among) compared items, you may use ‘gibi’ or ‘kadar’ together with the ordinary adjective form…

Bradley, Brunhilde gibi çalIskandIr – Bradley, like Brunhilde, is industrious.

Bradley, Brunhilde kadar çalIskandIr -- Bradley is as industrious as Brunhilde.

Bradley, Brunhilde ve Benjamin gibi çalIskandIr – Bradley, like Brunhilde and Benjamin, is industrious.

Intensive Adjectives

Now, one of the more interesting Turkish adjectival constructions arises when you add a prefix to ‘intensify’ the meaning of an adjective.

You'll recall that we've had plenty of occasion to add suffixes
to Turkish words, but this is the first (and almost only) occasion when it's acceptable (not to mention, correct and proper) to add a prefix...

Intensifying prefixes ending in m, p, r, s

Prefixes ending in ‘m’...