Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar

Word stress 33
yorgún ‘tired yorgún-um ‘I’m tired’
yorgún mu ‘is s/he tired?’
bisiklét ‘bicycle’ bisiklét-le ‘by bicycle’
bisiklét-se ‘as for the bicycle’
çocúk ‘child’ çocúk-ça ‘childish(ly)’
Irregular roots
The addition of (i)–(iv) in 4.3.2 (i.e. the copular markers, the generalizing modality
marker, the marker -(y)lA/ile, and the adverbial and person markers specified there) to an
irregular root tends not to change the existing position of stress within that word:
İstánbul İstánbulda-ydım‘I was in Istanbul’
İstánbul-la‘with Istanbul’
The addition of bile ‘even’, mI (interrogative), -(y)sA/ise ‘as for’ (i.e. (v)–(vii) in 4.3.2)
and dA (in its additive function described in 11.1.1.2 (ii)) to an irregular root may or may
not change the existing position of potential stress within that word. The stress may either
remain in its original position, or it may be attracted to the position just before the clitic:
İstánbul İstánbul
bile/İstanbúl bile ‘even
Istanbul’
İstánbul mu?/İstanbúl
mu? ‘Istanbul?’
for Istanbul’
İstánbulsa/İstanbúlsa ‘as
İstánbul da/İstanbúl
da ‘Istanbul too’
Co-occurrence of unstressable suffixes and clitics
When two or more of the above-mentioned suffixes or clitics (i)–(ix) cooccur in a word,
stress falls on the syllable immediately before the unstressable suffixes or clitics or
immediately before their unstressable segments:
otur-úyor-muş-sun bile ‘apparently you were already sitting’
otur-acák-sa da mı ‘even if s/he’s going to sit?’
iste-míş mi-ydi-n ki ‘had you asked for [it], then?’
An unstressable suffix followed by a stressable suffix
The addition of a stressable suffix to one of the unstressable suffixes or clitics does not
alter the position of stress. In the examples below, -DI and -lAr are stressable suffixes
following an unstressable suffix:
otúrma ‘don’t sit down’ otúr-ma-dı ‘s/he hasn’t sat down’
okuldá ‘at school’ okuldá-ymış-lar ‘apparently they are/were at school’