Word Order in Turkish

Today we will learn about the word order in Turkish.

The usual Turkish word order is

Subject + Complements + Predicate (Özne + Tümleçler + Yüklem)

In case you are not familiar with those terms;

Subject: Who performs the action (I, you, cat, people etc.)

Complements: The words that tell about the place, time or the adverbs which describes the way the action/verb is done.

Predicate: The verb with the tense and personal suffixes. 

Let's start with the most simple rule:

1) In a regular Turkish sentence verbs are expected to be the last word. But when you command or in the poems you may not see them at their expected place.

We can catgeorize the Turkish sentences into two groups regarding their word order/the place of the verb:

i. Regular Sentences (Kurallı Cümle) verb is the last word

Bugün hiçbir şey yemedim. I haven't eaten anything today.

Sen de mi bugün alışveriş yaptın? Did you also do shopping today?

ii. Inverse Sentences (Devrik Cümle) verb is NOT the last word

Gel buraya! Come here!

Git başımdan! Get out of my head!

These impolite sentences are irregular as they have the verb NOT in the end.

2) In question sentences the short question maker word mı/mi/mu/mü comes last. This is the case if the sentence does not have an interrogative word like ne/what, kim/who, neden/why. Why?

-Because in those sentences the first rule applies; verb comes last.

Neden benimle konuşmuyorsun? Why aren't you talking to me?

Kim benimle müzik dinlemek ister? Who does want to listen to music with me?

-After looking at the normal sentences, let's see how mı/mi works.

Marketten mum aldın mı? Did you buy candles from the store?

Yeni öğretmen bu hanım mı? Is the new teacher this lady?

Onun kavga etmediği kimse kaldı mı? Is there anybody left that he hasn't fight yet?

"Beğenmedim" mi dedin? Did you say "I did not like"?

-But this rule also has exceptions. In Turkish language we add the question word after any word that we want to ask about instead of just toning/stress.

Sen mi çaldın kapı zilini? Did you ring the doorbell?

Yarışmada du resim mi birinci oldu? Did this painting become the winner in the contest?

3) Time words usually come first if the sentence does not have subject.

Her sabah üç yumurta nasıl yiyor, gerçekten anlamıyorum. I really don't understand how he eats three eggs every morning.

Yazları yüzmekten, kışları ise koşmaktan hoşlanırım. In the summer I like swimming and running in the winter.

Sık sık pencereden dışarı bakar, mahallede top oynayan çocukları izlerdi. He often has been looking out from the window and watching the children playing football in the neighborhood.

Bugün hayatımın en mutlu günü. Today is the happiest day of my life.

3) The words can change their places depending on their importance. 

We had said that a usual Turkish sentence starts with the subject and ends with the verb. But is there no common order for the complements? Yes, there is.

Time words usually come in the beginning. If there is no subject in the sentence, then the become the first. They are usually followed by the adverbs, the words that describes the verb such as dikkatlice/carefully, heycanlı/excited, yavaş/slow/, hızlı/fast. 

Keeping this normal word order in the head, we can look at the other rules and you can try to remember this order when you read the following sample sentences.

a)The question word is one example for this as we can change its place depending on what we want to learn about.

Çay mı istersin kahve mi? Would you like to have tea or coffee?

Bugün mü gidelim yarın mı? Shall we go today or tomorrow?

Okula mı gidiyorsun? Are you going to school?

The stress is on the word "okul/school" here. The speaker is interested in learning if the person he talks to is going to school-or not.

Okula gidiyor musun? Are you going to school?

Now this is a normal form of question. There is no stress on a particular word.

Okula sen mi gidiyorsun? Are you going to school?

Sen is the word we question. We want to learn if "you" are going. You can think like a mathematic equation; you is the variable and school + to go are constants.

b) de/da can follow different words to add the meaning "also/too" to the words it follows.

Ben de bugün Türkçe çalışacağım. I will also study Turkish. There are other people that study Turkish. I will also study.

Ben bugün de Türkçe çalışacağım. I will study Turkish today, too. I studied Turkish yesterday and last week and I will keep studying also today.

Ben bugün Türkçe de çalışacağım. Today I will also study Turkish. I will study various subjects today and also Turkish.

c) The word with stress is usually the closest to the verb.

Yarın çocuklarla birlikte parka oyun oynamaya gideceğiz. Tomorrow we will go to the park to play games with the children. This is the normal structure. 

*Çocuklarla birlikte parka oyun oynamaya yarın gideceğiz.

**Yarın çocuklarla birlikte oyun oynamaya parka gideceğiz. 

In the first sentence I want to make sure that my audience will understand that I will do that "tomorrow". And in the second one, I want to get my audience's attention to the place-park.

d) Interrogative/Question words usually come first but it is not that strict rule. If you do not see them as first word, do not suspect that there is some hidden stress/emphasis around. They usually mean just as same.

Kim beni aradı? Who called me?

Beni kim aradı? 

Ne zaman İzmir'e taşındınız? When did you move to İzmir?

İzmir'e ne zaman taşındınız?

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Summary

• Verb comes last normally
• If you read poem, don't expect any normal order but enjoy the information you learned here, so you can understand what the poet put stress on with his/her words
• When there is a question maker word, you can expect the sentence to be in different word orders with the same meaning
• When you have a sentence with mı/ or de/also, they ass stress to the word they follow
• The word that comes just before the verb or comes last may have stress.

Hope everything is clear, if you have questions, please ask me!