# Relative Clause



## Flaminius

Spectre scolaire said:


> There is no relative pronoun in Turkish – at least not in the conventional meaning of the term.



This sets me wondering.  I understand that relative clauses can be made without relative pronouns in some languages (Japanese is one of them) but could someone please tell how exactly it is done in Turkish?


----------



## Binapesi

It’s hard to tell this as to Turkish but let me try by examples.

* Lets take an english sentence for example:*

*->* I see the child *who* is running.

“Who” is a relative clause. I mean, you use “words” as relative clauses in English. But in Turkish, It’s made by additions whose vowels are changed as to a grammar rule called vowel harmony. We add an addition at the back of the verb that gives the verb a relative clause meaning.

* It means in Turkish:*

*  -> *Koş*an* çoçuğu görüyorum.

 (Koşmak: To run. Çocuk: Child. Görmek: To see.)

We may call this “*-an*” addition relative clause. It gives the same meaning as a relative clause.

* Another example:*

*-> *Have you found the ring *that* you lost?

* In Turkish:*

*->* Kaybet*tiğin* yüzüğü buldun mu?

 (Kaybetmek: To lose. Yüzük: Ring. Bulmak: To find.)
*
If we summarize:*

If you want to characterize the *subject*, you use “*-an, -en*” additions that are used as to vowel harmony rule. But if you want to characterize the *object* then you use “*-dığı, -diği*” additions that are used as to vowel harmony rule like everytime.

*   ->* The child *who* is playing with the kitten is laughing.


* ->* Kediyle oynay*an* çocuk gülüyor. 

(It’s “the child” that makes the “laughing” action. The child is characterized. A *subject*. So we use “*-an*” addition after the verb.

 (Kedi: Cat, Kitten. Oynamak: To play. Gülmek: To laugh.)

*English:*

*->* The vase *that* I bought is broken.

*Turkish:*

*->* Satın al*dığım* vazo kırıldı. 

(It’s me who bought the vase, yes, but it’s the vase that I’m talking about. I say “it is broken.” You characterize the *object*, so you use the “*-dığı, -diği*” addition.

 (Satın almak: To buy. Vazo: Vase. Kırmak: To break. Kırılmak: To be broken.)


I hope it’s been helpful ..


----------



## Spectre scolaire

Keyt said:
			
		

> If you want to characterize the *object*, you use “*-an, -en*” additions that are used as to vowel harmony rule. But if you want to characterize the *subject* then you use “*-dığın, -diğin*” additions that are used as to vowel harmony rule like everytime.


I have nothing against your examples, but I suppose you mean the opposite when talking about _object_ and _subject_?

Gelen tren, “the train which comes/came” [depending on context] (or “the coming train”) - French: le train *qui* arrive/arrivait/est arrivé.

Aldığım tren, “the train which I take/took” [depending on context] - French: le train *que* je prend/j’ai pris.

In French *qui* is the subject relative pronoun, *que* denotes the object.


----------



## Spectre scolaire

If I may add:

-*E*n is subject to _twofold _vowel harmony: -en/-an.

-d*I*k is subject to _fourfold_ vowel harmony: ı/i/u/ü and weakening of the –*k*- to –*ğ*- before personal endings.


----------



## Flaminius

Am I right to put your contributions as below?

1. Particle -en/-an is used when the antecedent is the subject of the subordinate clause.
2. Particle -dık-/-dik-/etc. is used when the antecedent is the direct object of the subordinate clause.  The subject of the subordinate clause is indicated by the suffixed personal ending.

I have two questions about the verb in the subordinate clause:
How is the tense for patterns 1 and 2 expressed?
How is the person for pattern 1 expressed?

And one more question:
What device is used for a relative clause for which the antecedent is the indirect object of the subordinate clause?

Thank you again.


----------



## Chazzwozzer

Spectre scolaire said:


> Aldığım tren, “the train which I take/took” [depending on context]


*tren almak:* to buy a train

It never means _to come by train_ or _to use the train as your choice of transportation_ in Turkish. I can well understand what you mean now but it's only because I speak English.


----------



## Binapesi

Spectre scolaire said:


> I have nothing against your examples, but I suppose you mean the opposite when talking about _object_ and _subject_?



I fixed it. Thank you very much for correcting  ..


----------



## Binapesi

Flaminius said:


> Am I right to put your contributions as below?
> 
> 1. Particle -en/-an is used when the antecedent is the subject of the subordinate clause.
> 2. Particle -dık-/-dik-/etc. is used when the antecedent is the direct object of the subordinate clause.  The subject of the subordinate clause is indicated by the suffixed personal ending.
> 
> I have two questions about the verb in the subordinate clause:
> How is the tense for patterns 1 and 2 expressed?
> How is the person for pattern 1 expressed?
> 
> And one more question:
> What device is used for a relative clause for which the antecedent is the indirect object of the subordinate clause?
> 
> Thank you again.



My english is not so good to understand everything, but if i've got it true, i'll answer ..

You dont need to know the tense when you're using a relative clause. Just add the addition after the verb of the subordinate clause.
1. Example: The girl *who* is smiling is a doctor. (continuous tense)
Turkish: Gülümsey*en* kız bir doktordur.

2. Example: The girl *who* smiled is a doctor. (past tense)
Turkish: Gülümsey*en* kız bir doktordur.

(Gülümsemek:To smile. Kız:Girl. Doktor: Doctor. Bir:A.)

It's not important in which tense the subordinate clause is in English. In turkish, you just add the addition. As you see, there is no difference between when the subordinate clause is in continuous tense and when it's in past tense.

Actually i havent understood of the second question. I wont be able to answer ..

One more answer to one more question:

Example: The man *who* said "I'm home." is washing his hands.
Turkish: "Ben geldim." diy*en* adam ellerini yıkıyor.

(Gelmek:To come.To be home. Demek:To say. Diyen: ... who said. Adam:Man. El:Hand. Yıkamak:To wash.)

I hope this will be an answer to your last question.

The indirect speech will be the object of the relative clause.
Just like:

The woman who is looking for *her glasses* has fell over.
*Gözlüğünü* arayan kadın yere kapaklandı.

(Gözlük:Glasses. Aramak:To look for. Kadın:Woman. Yere kapaklanmak:To fall over.)

The man who said "*I'm home.*" is washing his hands.
"*Ben geldim.*" diyen adam ellerini yıkıyor.

The bolded places are in the same use. They are both the object of the relative clause. But indirect speech that is in quotation marks doesnt get any addition. It's all alone.

You're welcome again


----------



## modus.irrealis

I'm just a beginner with Turkish so anybody please correct me if I say anything wrong, but my impression is that Turkish basically uses participles instead of relative clauses, but it's just that Turkish has a lot more of them and they're like super-versions of the participles found in say English.



Flaminius said:


> How is the tense for patterns 1 and 2 expressed?



For 1, I think there are also suffixes -miş and -ecek for past and future (which of course can change due to vowel harmony, and the k becomes ğ before vowels). But according to my references, they're relative to the main verb, and the -en ending can represent a past verb (like English "singing" in "the singing man died" = "the man who was singing died").

For 2, I think there's a specifically future ending, again -ecek, but -dik is used for everything else, with the subject again indicated by a personal suffix (and I don't know if anyone's mentioned that the subject is put in the genitive case if it's explicitly mentioned). My reference grammar gives the example:

Mehmedin ailesine göndereceği mektup
of-Mehmet to-his-family send-ecek-his letter
the letter that Mehmet will send



> How is the person for pattern 1 expressed?


With 1, the subject is just whatever word that follows the -en particle. So my guess, and I hope someone either confirms or corrects it, is to have a different person you would say something like

kitap okuyan ben hastayım
book read-en I sick-am
I, who am reading a book, am sick.



> What device is used for a relative clause for which the antecedent is the indirect object of the subordinate clause?


You just use pattern 2 again. An example from my reference is

haberleri söylediğim kimse
the-news tell-dik-my person
the person to whom I told the news
 



Keyt said:


> 2. Example: The girl *who* smiled is a doctor. (past tense)
> Turkish: Gülümsey*en* kız bir doktordur.



How does the -miş ending I mention work? Could you say in your example _gülümsemiş_ (or _gülümsemiş olan_) instead of _gülümseyen_?


----------



## divinelight

You could say _gülümsemiş olan_ but it does not really sound right. You can fıgure out the tense from the rest of the sentence anyway. For example:

Gülümseyen kız bana baktı. (The girl that was smiling looked at me)
Gülümseyen kız bana bakıyor. (The girl that is smiling is looking at me)

In these examples, the verb of the main clause (_baktı_ and _bakıyor_) tell you the tense.

However, you can use the -miş ending for a past action that is a one time action, as opposed to a continous action such as _smiling_. Example:

Yapmış olduğum hatadan pişmanım. ( I regret the mistake that I made)
Sana vermiş olduğum sözü tutacağım. ( I will keep the word that I gave you)

In both cases, _make_ and _give_ are not continous actions. Keep in mind that you can still say _yaptığım hatadan_ and _verdigim sözü_. Both versions are correct.


----------



## Spectre scolaire

To _Chazzwozzer_: You’d be surprised to hear what Turkish immigrants in Europe can produce in terms of _calques_ which sound strange to Turkish ears! Of course, you’re right! Let me rephrase it:

aldığım tren bileti, “the train ticket which I bought” 

_The grammatical relation which I wanted to show_ did not suffer, however, through my non-idiomatic choice of words. 

Turk.: göstermek istediğim gramer ilişkisi, [göster-mek iste-diğ-im gramer ilişki-si], {show[+inf.mark] want[+dIk+1st.pers.ending] grammar relation[+poss.pron.]}

Here again we have a relative sentence in which the relative pronoun – in French or in German - would be put in the accusative. (In German, you wouldn’t _see_ it in this case because the German word for “relation” is a fem. word which does not exhibit a difference in the accusative). Whatever, let’s have a look at a Turkish sentence excerpted from a newspaper.

The following is a caption to an old picture:


Kurtuluş Savaşı sırasında İstanbul’dan kaçan yurtsever mühendislerin temelini attığı bu fabrikada yurdun çeşitli illerinden gelen kadınlar savaş için cephane üretmişti.


Kurtuluş Savaş-ı sıra-sı-n-da İstanbul-dan kaç-an yurt-sev-er mühendis-ler-in temel-i-n-i at-tığ-ı bu fabrika-da yurd-un çeşit-li il-ler-i-n-den gel-en kadın-lar savaş için cephane üret-miş-ti.


{independance war[+poss.pron.] sequence[+poss.pron.+BL+loc.] Istanbul[+abl.] escape[+En] fatherland-love[+aor.part.] engineer[+plur.+gen.] foundation[+poss.pron.+BL+acc.] cast[+dIk+poss.pron.] this factory[+loc.] fatherland[+gen.] sort[+adj.suff.] province[+plur.+poss.pron.+ BL+abl.] come[+En] woman[+plur.] war for ammunition produce[+miş-past+di-past+3rd pers.ending]}


BL = buffer letter; acc. = accusative; gen. = genitive; loc. = locative; abl. = ablative. The aorist participle is less common than the present participle.


Concerning *miş*-past and *di*-past, I would suggest to look it up in a Turkish grammar. Here it would be off topic.


A propos –d*I*k and –*E*n, cf. previous posting.


“During the War of Independance patriotic engineers fleeing Istanbul had cast the foundation of this factory in which women who came from various provinces of the country, produced ammunition for the war.”


In whatever way you translate this sentence, you would have to reshape it in order to avoid clumsy English. Part of it actually goes like this: “in this factory [with reference to the photograph] which patriotic engineers had cast the foundation [of]”, etc., cf. _yurtsever mühendislerin temelini attığı bu fabrikada_ - but then you’d have a problem with the rest of the sentence.


The first part of the "izafet construction" of which _temeli_ is the second element, would be _fabrikan__ın_ – “the factory[+gen.] basis [+poss.pron.] – which, however, is not expressed because the same word appears in locative right afterwards, and _temel_ is in the accusative because of the verb at=.

I hope I didn’t forget any details now. (Every time I look through this, I see something to be improved...)


----------



## divinelight

Spectre Scolaire:
Could you explain a little more what you mean by the following:
_fabrikanın temeli_ – “the factory[+gen.] basis [+poss.pron.]

I understand that _fabrika_ is in the genitive in this case, but how do you consider the ending -i a possessive pronoun (assuming that's what poss. pron. stands for). Thank you!


----------



## modus.irrealis

divinelight, thanks. In Keyt's example, though, "smile" wasn't a continuous action (at least I didn't read it that way), which is why I thought _gülümsemiş _would be appropriate (with _olan_ I guess but I haven't got the rules down for when you use _olan_ and when you don't).



divinelight said:


> In these examples, the verb of the main clause (_baktı_ and _bakıyor_) tell you the tense.



That I see (in fact, I mentioned in my own post that the tense of the subordinate clause is relative). But in Keyt's example there was no indication in the main clause, which why I was wondering if you could make the past tense of the one example more explicit.



> Yapmış olduğum hatadan pişmanım. ( I regret the mistake that I made)
> Sana vermiş olduğum sözü tutacağım. ( I will keep the word that I gave you)
> 
> In both cases, _make_ and _give_ are not continous actions. Keep in mind that you can still say _yaptığım hatadan_ and _verdigim sözü_. Both versions are correct.


Those examples make me ask why someone would use the _yapmış olduğum_ version instead of _yaptığım_, i.e. what's the difference?

But I brought up the -miş ending because it can be used when something is the subject of the relative clause, while in your example it's the object. Things like _istasyona gelmiş olan tren _"the train that came to the station."


----------



## divinelight

Modus.irrealis,
Actually now that I think about it, the -miş ending is used more for completed actions, as in the example you gave: 
_istasyona gelmiş olan tren _"the train that came to the station." _Olan _gives it a more complete meaning.
It can be used for both subjects and objects of the relative clause, as can be seen from my examples and yours. 

Another example of a completed action:
Istanbula _ gelmiş bulunuyoruz. _(We have come to Istanbul)


----------



## Honour

If Turkish has to express many things in a relative clause in any other language then it converts all of them to "verbal adjectives" (in our nomenclature) as few as possible. There are also verbal adverbs, future participles etc...

Lets assume that we have seen a warning sign on the fence of a building site that says;

Entrance of the *workers who don't wear safety eqiupment* is prohibitted.

*Güvenlik ekipmanı giymeyen işçiler*in girmesi yasaktır.
Güvenlik: Safety
Ekipman: Equipment
Giymeyen*: aren't wearing, who don't wear
İşçi: Worker
Entrance: Giriş (in this case girmesi> their entrance)
Prohibited: Yasaktır

An adjective clause consists of at least an adjective and a name. In the example above, işçiler is the name. Güvenlik ekipmanı giymeyen is the adjective part. Giymeyen is an adjective that qualifies a name with the absence of clothing. 

Similarly, *düşen çocuk* (kid who falls) is another adjective clause composed with the verbal adjective *düşen. *_Düşmek_ means _to fall_ and düşen qualifies the çocuk as the subject of the action.


----------



## Binapesi

divinelight said:


> Modus.irrealis,
> Actually now that I think about it, the -miş ending is used more for completed actions, as in the example you gave:
> _istasyona gelmiş olan tren _"the train that came to the station." _Olan _gives it a more complete meaning.
> It can be used for both subjects and objects of the relative clause, as can be seen from my examples and yours.



But we usually dont use this pattern (istasyona gelmiş olan) in normal life. Mostly, speakers on the tv use such phrases. Or at the important meetings bla bla. In normal life, we say, "istasyona gelen tren.." ..

You may put all the others in this pattern also.

Exmp 1. : "I see the child who is running."

              "Koşan çocuğu görüyorum." or "Koşmakta olan çocuğu görüyorum."

Exmp 2 : "Have you found the ring that you lost?"

             "Kaybettiğin yüzüğü buldun mu?" or "Kaybetmiş olduğun yüzüğü buldun mu?"

You dont say "Kaybetti olduğun." .. Never sounds nice  ..


----------



## divinelight

Honour said:


> If Turkish has to express many things in a relative clause in any other language then it converts all of them to "verbal adjectives" (in our nomenclature) as few as possible. There are also verbal adverbs, future participles etc...
> 
> Lets assume that we have seen a warning sign on the fence of a building site that says;
> 
> Entrance of the *workers who don't wear safety eqiupment* is prohibitted.
> 
> *Güvenlik ekipmanı giymeyen işçiler*in girmesi yasaktır.
> Güvenlik: Safety
> Ekipman: Equipment
> Giymeyen*: aren't wearing, who don't wear
> İşçi: Worker
> Entrance: Giriş (in this case girmesi> their entrance)
> Prohibited: Yasaktır
> 
> An adjective clause consists of at least an adjective and a name. In the example above, işçiler is the name. Güvenlik ekipmanı giymeyen is the adjective part. Giymeyen is an adjective that qualifies a name with the absence of clothing.
> 
> Similarly, *düşen çocuk* (kid who falls) is another adjective clause composed with the verbal adjective *düşen. *_Düşmek_ means _to fall_ and düşen qualifies the çocuk as the subject of the action.


 
That's a good way to put it. Especially if you consider that there are similar examples in English of verbal adjectives taking the place of a relative clause. For example:

I see the kid who is running.
I see the running kid. 

So you can get rid of the relative pronoun "who" in this case.


----------

