# word order



## littlepond

Hello everyone, again!

I came upon this imagined conversation between a mother and her daughter in the book I'm learning Turkish from:






Now, the book had earlier said that in Turkish word ordering, usually the word just before the verb has the greatest emphasis. In the conversation above, in the last question (from the daughter to the mother), I would have thought the girl would put emphasis on the "cat": i.e., haven't you seen _her_ either? (As the mother had already not seen the dog as well, it wouldn't make much sense to me that the girl emphasises the mother, again.)

However, in the question "Onu sen de görmedim mi?", isn't the emphasis again on "sen de", the words right before the verb?

Thanks in advance!


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## misi2991

Hello,

This conversation is probably written by a non-native speaker. I don't know much about the rules of Turkish grammar, but as a native speaker, I'd put the "mi" after whatever it is I want to emphasise. e.g. Sen de mi (onu) görmedin? / Kediyi de mi görmedin?


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## littlepond

misi2991 said:


> Hello,
> 
> This conversation is probably written by a non-native speaker. I don't know much about the rules of Turkish grammar, but as a native speaker, I'd put the "mi" after whatever it is I want to emphasise. e.g. Sen de mi (onu) görmedin? / Kediyi de mi görmedin?



Thanks, that is much more logical to my mind! The book is indeed written by an American.


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## Şafak

The book gives a very good rule of thumb.


littlepond said:


> Onu sen de görmedim mi


Doğru değil.

'Onu sen de görme*din* mi?' olmalı.

Just stick to this word order for now.


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## Rallino

Şafak said:


> The book gives a very good rule of thumb.
> 
> Doğru değil.
> 
> 'Onu sen de görme*din* mi?' olmalı.
> 
> Just stick to this word order for now.


Why should they stick to this word order? 

Onu sen de görmedin mi? and Onu sen de mi görmedin? are used in completely different contexts, and as misi said, _Onu sen de mi görmedin?_ should have been used in the dialogue.

Onu sen de görmedin mi? is a very rare syntax, and could be used when asking rhetorically: "didn't you see it too? It was amazing!" - the speaker probably knows that the other person saw it. It's just for the surprise effect.

_Onu sen de mi görmedin? _means I (or someone) didn't see it. Didn't you see it either? - here it's a genuine question, asking if the other person also belongs to the group of people that didn't see it.


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## Şafak

Rallino said:


> Why should they stick to this word order?
> 
> Onu sen de görmedin mi? and Onu sen de mi görmedin? are used in completely different contexts, and as misi said, _Onu sen de mi görmedin?_ should have been used in the dialogue.
> 
> Onu sen de görmedin mi? is a very rare syntax, and could be used when asking rhetorically: "didn't you see it too? It was amazing!" - the speaker probably knows that the other person saw it. It's just for the surprise effect.
> 
> _Onu sen de mi görmedin? _means I (or someone) didn't see it. Didn't you see it either? - here it's a genuine question, asking if the other person also belongs to the group of people that didn't see it.


Anladım. 
I can explain why. Because the flexibility of "mi" can be very confusing to learners. That's why I suggested using the most standard word order which can be found in every textbook (but not in every textbook you'll see how "mi" traverses sentences and follows whatever the writer / speakers wants to put emphasis on.


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## littlepond

Thanks, @Şafak, for your consideration, but the flexibility of this "mi" is not confusing to me: in Hindi, my native tongue, the word order is very flexible, so in fact a rigid word order makes my mind more confused! Also, the writer of the book I'm learning from has already said beforehand that that the interrogative particle ("-mi") need not be placed at the end only.

Thanks, everyone!


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