# passive building



## cyaxares_died

Ok, this is a question totally embarrassingly divulging my complete lack of knowledge of theoretical grammar. 
Heretofore, I thought that whether to use an 'l' or an 'n' (and I think there's another letter, but right now it doesn't spring to mind) to make the passive depended on mystificatingly dense phonetics laws. But obviously, görünmek exists, and it means to appear, as well as "görülmek" which is the normal passive.Iis there an easy way to explain to me how this can be?


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## Mr. Smith

Turkish is not my native tongue. However, I've been living in Turkey for 34 years now. Working at a consulate, I'm regularly in contact with the natives for all that time. After this introduction, I'd like to comment on the differences of usage of the verbs you've quoted.

"Görünmek" means* to* *appear*. You are correct. It also means, "to be visible to the eye", like a beloved one who appears in your dream or a part of body being exposed which is normally covered by a dress.

"Görülmek" is not the normal passive of the former. It means "*to be seen*". Just like a fugitive being spotted in a crowd or at a shopping mall by a surveillance camera. Though, it is still passive in structure stemming from the verb "görmek" (to see).


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## vatrahos

Like Ancient Greek, Turkish has more than just two voices. There are, if I'm not wrong, four:

active: *_*-mek
passive: *il*-mek
reflexive: *(i)n*-mek
reciprocal: *(i)ş*-mek

"i" becomes "ü" / "u" / "ı" depending on vowel harmony; if the stem ends in a vowel, then you do not add any vowel for reflexive or reciprocal -- e.g., 

yıka-mak = to wash [something]; 
yıka-n-mak = to wash myself.

reflexive means the subject is performing the verb upon itself:

*active*: to put on a dress = bir elbise giy-mek
*reflexive*: to dress [myself] = giy*in*-mek
*
active*: to use = kullan-mak
*passive*: to be used = kullan-*ıl*-mak

*active:* to find = bul-mak
*reciprocal*: to find each other / to meet each other = bul-*uş*-mak

"let's meet each other at Taksim square" = "Taksim Meydanı'nda bul-*uş*-alım"


There is one exception, though, to the rule for passive:

when the stem of the verb ends in (1) "L" or (2) a vowel, then they don't use "IL" for passive -- rather, _they use the reflexive endings [-in-]_. For example:

*bul-mak*: here we have to add an "n" to make the passive voice. But it looks exactly like the reflexive voice. So, really, "bul-un-mak" means both

1) "to be found" (passive meaning) 
and 
2)"to find oneself" / "to be located" (reflexive)

For stems that end in a vowel, they add "N":

iste-mek = to want (active)
iste-n-mek = to be wanted (passive)


Those are the basic rules I learned. I could be wrong, since I don't really speak Turkish, but I hope I've helped a little!


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## vatrahos

so, to answer your specific question:

gör-mek (active) = to see
gör-ül-mek (passive) = to be seen
gör-ün-mek (reflexive) = to appear*
gör-üş-mek (reciprocal) = to see each other


* [even though "görünmek" is _morphologically_ "reflexive", it seems to be, _semantically_, an active intransitive verb]


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## Rallino

I see you got some good answers,

The suffixes of passive voice are: " l " and " n "*

However : The suffixes for reflexive are also "l" and "n".*

now for this one,  unfortunately I can't think of any rules...

we say:
 gör*ün*mek (to appear), çek*in*mek (to hesitate), kaç*ın*mak (to avoid).... 
but also
tak*ıl*mak (to hang out, to mock), çek*il*mek (to retreat), aç*ıl*mak (to move further /to open in the ocean)....

Which are all reflexive.  


For example:
İp çekildi = the rope was pulled. (here, passive)
Düşman çekildi = The enemy has retreated. (here, reflexive)

I don't know if this helps but we dont seem to have a rule about it, or at least I don't know any..


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## Volcano

*-n and -l are the suffixes that make a passive or a reflexive verb from a verb in Turkish.*


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## cyaxares_died

Thanks a lot everyone. This has provided me with a very useful glimpse of the scope of things that I do not know !


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