Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar

Turkish: A comprehensive grammar 142
-(y)Akal is almost exclusively used with the verbs bak- ‘look’, don- ‘freeze’ and şaş-
‘be surprised’, producing the forms bakakal- ‘be amazed’, donakal-‘be stunned’ and
şaşakal- ‘be dumbfounded’:
(77) [Söylediklerini duyunca] donakaldık.
‘We were stunned [when we heard what you said].’
The verb roots dur- ‘stay’ and kal- ‘remain’ can also be used as free forms. These
separate verb forms are more productive than their suffixed counterparts -(y)Adur and
-(y)Akal, and are used following the conjunctive suffix -(y)Ip (28.2):
(78) Şan derslerine gid-ip dur-uyor ama şarkı söylediği yok.
go-CONJ AUX-IMPF
‘S/he keeps going to singing lessons, but s/he doesn’t sing.’
(79) Burada böylece otur-up kal-dı-k.
sit-CONJ AUX-PF-1PL
‘We were just left sitting here.’
13.3.1.2 Compound verb forms containing free auxiliaries
The free auxiliaries ol- and bulun- can form compounds with verbs. Ol- is fully
productive, while bulun- is limited in usage. These auxiliaries function as buffer stems
which, acting as carriers for tense/aspect/modality suffixes, supplement the tense/aspect
marking that is already present on the lexical verb in a finite clause (e.g. bitir- in (80)):
(80) Bu arada da ders-imiz-i bitir-miş ol-acağ-ız.
meanwhile and lesson-1PL.POSS-ACC finish-PF AUX-FUT-1PL
‘And in the meantime we will have finished our homework.’
For a survey of the wide range of compound verb forms in common use in finite clauses
see 21.5. For those occurring in conditional clauses see 27.2.1.3 and 27.2.6.
In non-finite compound verb forms the free auxiliaries act as bearers of the
subordinating suffix, freeing the lexical stem to carry a tense/aspect marker (see 24.4.7,
25.4.1, 26.2.3 (i)):
(81) [Semra’yla konuş-uyor ol-duğ-un sırada] bütün sırlarını anlatmıştın
speak-IMPF AUX-CV-2SG.POSS
‘[At the time when you were on speaking terms with Semra], you told [her] all
your secrets.’
The auxiliary verb bulun- is generally confined to formal or pedantic discourse:
(82) Kayıtları bugün saat 17 itibariyle kapat-mış bulun-uyor-uz.
finish-PF AUX-IMPF-1PL
‘We [officially] finished registration at 5 p.m. today.’
However, it can have the different function of attributing an element of involuntariness to
the action denoted by the verb, suggesting that it was carried out either by mistake or as