Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar

4.1.2 IRREGULAR ROOTS AND STEMS
The following groups of words have irregular root stress:
(i) Adverbs are mostly stressable on the first syllable:
şímdi ‘now’
bélki ‘perhaps’
yárın ‘tomorrow’
áncak ‘only’, ‘only just’
Note that this rule does not apply to words which function primarily as adjectives
(16.1.2), but to those that are adverbs in their primary function (16.1.1). Thus in Bunu
koláy yaptım ‘I did this easily’, the adjectival koláy ‘easy’ retains its regular stress
position even though it functions as an adverb in this sentence.
(ii) Many nouns of foreign origin (in particular, those which are borrowed from a
language other than Arabic or Persian) do not conform to the stress pattern of native
words, and are stressed on a syllable other than the final one:
lokánta (Italian) ‘restaurant’
bánka (Italian) ‘bank’
iskémle (French) ‘chair’
táksi (French) ‘taxi’
lόbi (English) ‘lobby’
fútbol (English) ‘soccer’
péncere (Persian) ‘window’
politíka (Greek) ‘politics’
iskéle (Greek) ‘quay’
satsúma (Japanese) ‘satsuma’
(iii) Place names have a non-final stress position:
Tǘrkiye, Ánkara, İstánbul, Táksim, Adána, İngiltére, Fránsa, Afríka
Exceptions are place names ending in the suffix -istan, which are stressed on the last
syllable:
Hindistán ‘India’
Gürcistán ‘Georgia’
Word stress 27
Some speakers place the stress in place names ending in -istan on the penultimate
syllable (e.g. Gürcístan).
Note that the difference in stress is the only distinguishing factor between some place
names and otherwise identical common nouns: