Turkish Adverbials

In Turkish, adverbials (belirteçler) are words or phrases that modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs to provide more detail about how, when, where, or to what degree an action takes place. Understanding adverbials is key to building more natural and expressive Turkish sentences.

+(y)ArAk , +(y)Ip, +(y)ken (or iken), +(y)IncA (if you are not sure how to read this notation, read this resource) are four Turkish adverbial suffixes that are often difficult for students to master. Here we describe how to use each one, and how they differ from each other.

I. +(y)ArAk

+(y)ArAk is the 'manner' adverbial, the 'how'. It describes the manner in which some action is carried

out.

Example:

Yağız: Dün kütüphaneye gittim.

Ayşenur: Nasıl gittin? Ne yaptın?

Yağız: Yürüyerek gittim. Kahve içerek ödev okudum.

II. +(y)IncA

+(y)IncA is successive/causal and usually also causal. It denotes that some event triggers some action.

Example:

Ayşenur: Sinemaya gitmediniz mi? ‘Gideceğiz’ demiştin.

Yağız: En çok babam gitmek istiyordu. Ama babam hastalanınca…işte…

Ayşenur: Haaa, gitmediniz yani? E sinemaya gitmeyince ne yaptınız?

Yağız: Evde bir film izlemeye başladık. Sonra ben aslında o filmi izlemiş olduğumu fark edince,

filmi bırakıp kitap okudum.

III. +(y)ken

+(y)ken (or full-word form ‘iken’): during, while, but it can also be when, during the period of.

Example:

Yağız: Sen arabayla mı geliyorsun yürüyerek mi?

Gülener: Gelirken iki bira alsana!

Yağız: Tamam, alırım.

Gülener: Şahane.

(Yağız buzdolabına bakar)

Yağız: Aaa aslında, dur, evde bira varmış! Dün maçı izlerken bitiririz diye düşünmüştük ama iki

tane kalmış.

Ben dönerken o gidiyormuş.

IV. +(y)Ip

+(y)Ip : packages actions. successive or simultaneous, doesn’t matter, they are packaged.

Combines the two actions and makes them into one complete package. It doesn’t describe a

cause or trigger nor does it describe the manner in which something takes place.

Çağla: Sabah erken kalkıp yürüyüşe çıktım. Normalde yaptığım bir şey değil.

Yağız: Helal olsun be! Böyle yaparak beni üzüyorsun ama…onu diyeyim.

Çağla: A aa, ne münasebet?

Yağız: Yaa işte, ben bu aralar hep bilgisayarda çalışmak zorundayım. Yürümeye, hareket

etmeye vaktim olmuyor. Sen öyle deyince şimdi ne kadar az hareket ettiğimi düşünüp üzüldüm.

Ee neyse, sonra ne yaptın?

Çağla: Ne yapayım işte…okula gidip ders verdim. Ama okula gidince çok acayip bir şey oldu.

Yağız: Ne oldu?

Çağla: Eski erkek arkadaşımı gördüm.

Examples for the main differences in the chart:

1. Tenses and +(y)ken:

Uyurken deprem olmuş. or Tam uyuyacakken o aradı, bir saat telefonda konuştuk.

2. Different subjects and +(y)ken and +(y)IncA O uyurken, ben çalıştım. or O gelmeyince ben

sinemaya tek gittim.

Contrasts and similarities (or even occasional overlaps):

A. When +(y)Ip ~ +(y)Arak are similar:

Kahve içerek sohbet ettik.
Kahve içip sohbet ettik.

Almost equally common to hear for ‘we had some coffee and talked’ kind of

situation. The difference? It’s nuanced. (1) is underlyingly answering the question

‘Nasıl içtiniz?’ that is to say ‘What was the manner, overall mood, the theme

around, the main action around the sohbet etmek for you?

In (2) kahve içmek and sohbet etmek are made into a naturally occurring

package. Not a big deal. Nothing is marked about kahve içmek as opposed to 1.

In 2 the two verbs are equal. but it’s not the case in ‘Markete gidip ekmek aldım.’

1. We chatted all the while drinking coffee.

2. We had coffee and chatted.

ii.

Müzik dinleyerek ders çalışıyorum.
- I’m studying and I have music going in the background. It supports or facilitates studying.
Müzik dinleyip ders çalışıyorum.
- I’m studying and listening to music. The two actions are happening simultaneously. They are a nice package together. I’m not suggesting that I’m also listening to music and that’s how I do my studying.

iii. Now let’s compare the other 2 in the same context:

Müzik dinlerken ders çalışıyorum. While listening to music, I study.
Müzik dinleyince ders çalışıyorum. Upon listening to music (I get inspired to) I start studying.

iv. Let’s flip it:

Ders çalışırken müzik dinliyorum. I listen to music while studying. More natural thing to hear than the previous one, only because a lot of people do so, and less people get inspired to study whenever there’s music going on. But of course, why not? Ders çalışınca müzik dinliyorum. When studying happens, I start listening to music.

Now all 4 together in a different context:

a. Accusative (definite and direct) object:

Suyu markete giderek aldım. I got the water by going to the market. That was my method.
Suyu markete gidip aldım. I got the water by going to the market.
Suyu markete giderken aldım. I got the water on my way to the market.
Suyu markete gidince aldım. I got the water when I got to the market. Maybe I was planning to get it once I’m in the market OR just being in the market reminded of my need for water.

b. Indefinite but direct object:

Markete giderek su aldım. Through what means did you get water? I got it by going to the market.
Markete gidip su aldım. What did you do? I went to the market and got some water.
Markete giderken su aldım. When did you get the water? On my way to the market.
Markete gidince su aldım. I got water when I went to the market. Either answering WHEN did you get the water? or What moved you to get water?

B. When ken ~ ınca:

Müzik çalınca ders çalışamadım. When music started to play, I became unable to study.
Müzik çalarken ders çalışamadım. When music was playing, I was not able to study.

These two might be very close to each other but ‘çalınca’ has a sense of ‘starting to play’, because it’s a change of events, a critical trigger point, which leads to the loss of ability to study. #2 on the other hand is also most probably expressing a causal relationship where the music disturbs the study but is weaker on that front as the music playing is framed as a continuous not necessarily as significant as ‘çalınca’ kind of event.

The two following examples are even closer to each other:

Sen evdeyken ben ders çalışamıyorum. I cannot study while you are home.
Sen evde olunca ben ders çalışamıyorum. I cannot study when you turn out present at home.

C. The Big Commonality

ALL of them don’t carry person information, it’s figured out from the context.

ALL of them CAN be used with person, to clear out any potential ambiguity if the context is not

strong enough.

Örnekler:

With subject, followed by a different subject:

Sen gelince, ders çalışmayı bıraktım.

Jake Barcelona’dayken, siz Alaska’da yaşıyordunuz galiba.

With subject. Remember that it cannot be followed by a different subject.

Futbolcular antrenmanı erken bitirip bara gittiler.

Futbolcular antrenmanı erken bitirerek kulüp başkanını üzdüler.

Gençken her yaz tatile giderdim. I used to go on vacation every summer when I was young.

*Genç olunca her yaz tatile giderdim is not a meaningful sentence

*Sizi görürken çok sevindim is not a meaningful sentence.

Sizi görünce çok sevindim. I was very happy when I saw you.

Some mental exercises

Do the following sentences work? How can you save them?

Kahve içip karnım ağrıdı.- intended: I drank coffee and upset my belly.
- No, because the subjects (kahve and karnım) don’t match, which they should in ‘ıp’.
Sen Barcelona’da yaşayınca, oradaki hayatını seviyor muydun? - intended: Did you like your life there when you lived in Barcelona?
- No, because the ‘ınca’ should be used with a triggering, critical event. Living somewhere is continuous.
Biz burada yaşamaya başlayınca, çok mutlu oldu. intended: He got very happy, when we started to live here.
- Yes, now that we have living under the umbrella of ‘starting to’, which is a one-off-course-changing action by definition (that’s what a ‘start’ is, right?).
Genç olunca her yaz tatile giderdim. intended: When I was young, I went on vacation every summer.
- No, ol- cannot be used as ‘to be’, which, then it should mean ‘become’ or ‘happen’ here, but then you don’t ‘become’ young overnight, right?
Çocuğumuz olunca her yaz tatile gitmeye başladık. intended: When we had a kid, we started going on vacation every summer.
- Yes, perfect Turkish! ol- here is for having a child, a child started to be present. Like the ‘Sen evde olunca’ example from before.
Seni görürken çok sevindim. intended: I was (became) very happy to see you.
- No, ‘You don’t continuously see a person and repetitively ‘become’ happy within one meeting.
Ben ödevimi kahveye giderek yapıyorum. intended: I go to the coffeeshop to do my homework.
- No, not really, although it could pass. It sounds like: ‘I do my homework using the method of going to the coffeeshop’