# Question about word order (Lewis' Turkish, Unit One)



## mujahid7ia

Merhaba!

I have just started studying Turkish, using Geoffrey Lewis' Turkish (from the Teach Yourself series, 1992 ed.).

Exercise 1.1 (translate into English), no. 9: *Bü küçük kızö yarın köyden şehre gidiyor.*
I translated this as: *This little girl is going from the village to the city tomorrow.*
The answer key has: *This little girl is going tomorrow from the village to the city.*
I put the “tomorrow” last, as in the section on word order, Lewis said that generally expressions of time precede those of place, and that words to be emphasized are placed just before the verb. Therefore, it seems that “yarın” is not being given any specific emphasis; why is “tomorrow” then brought before “from the village to the city”? (Perhaps I am just reading too much into the English order and there is no real difference here.)

Thank you
Imran


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## Rallino

> [...] and that words to be emphasized are placed just before the verb.


True.

In the Turkish sentence _köyden şehre_ is emphasized. Since _yarın_ is not emphasized, it can be put anywhere else:
_Yarın bu küçük kız köyden şehre gidiyor.
Bu küçük kız köyden şehre gidiyor yarın.
Köyden şehre gidiyor bu küçük kız yarın.
Köyden şehre gidiyor yarın bu küçük kız._


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## mujahid7ia

Thank you for the very quick reply; that makes sense. I didn't realize the syntax was so flexible.

How, then, would you translate *On the little steamer we drink coffee *(Exercise 1.2, #5)?

I said *Kahve küçük vapurda içiyoruz *but the answer key says *K**üçük vapurda** k**ahve** içiyoruz*.

To me, the original sentence seemed to be emphasizing the location (as opposed to "We drink coffee on the little steamer"), and so I put* küçük vapurda *just before the verb.

Thanks
Imran


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## Rallino

Technically your syntax is correct.

There is, however, another rule that comes into play there. 
If your direct object is indefinite and in the nominative case, it has to be next to the verb. If you put other things in between, you have to put the direct object in the accusative case: _Kahve*yi* küçük vapurda içiyoruz. _


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## mujahid7ia

Thank you very much; that rule explains it. I think it would have been helpful for it it to be included under the discussion of the Absolute form and Definite Objective case (or nominative and accusative) in this book.

One more question concerning word order: Exercise 1.2 #8: *Ahmet is showing the ball to the children in the garden.
*
My translation: Ahmet, topu çocuklara bahçede gösterior.
Lewis' translation: Ahmet, bahçede topu çocuklara gösterior.

I just want to confirm my understanding: I assume Lewis' translation is more accurate because in the English original, the location seems to be just incidental information, so it doesn't deserve to be emphasized by being placed just before the verb. Is this correct?

Thanks for all your help!


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## Black4blue

mujahid7ia said:


> One more question concerning word order: Exercise 1.2 #8: *Ahmet is showing the ball to the children in the garden.
> *
> My translation: Ahmet, topu çocuklara bahçede gösteriyor.
> Lewis' translation: Ahmet, bahçede topu çocuklara gösteriyor.
> 
> I just want to confirm my understanding: I assume Lewis' translation is more accurate because in the English original, the location seems to be just incidental information, so it doesn't deserve to be emphasized by being placed just before the verb. Is this correct?
> 
> Thanks for all your help!



Yes, that's right. _Bahçede_ isn't the stressed part of the sentence so it shouldn't be right before the verb.


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## mujahid7ia

Thank you for the reply and for the correction to my typos. I just installed the Turkish keyboard, and I already have English, Arabic, Urdu, Spanish keyboards installed, so my fingers just automatically go to the wrong keys! Plus my keyboard has English and Arabic characters printed on them, but the Arabic keyboard layout differs from the one I actually use!


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