Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar

Adjectival constructions, determiners and numerals 171
şekerli kahve ‘coffee with sugar’
beş yatak odalı ev ‘five-bedroomed house’
yedi yaşında bir çocuk ‘a seven-year-old child’
evin önündeki arabalar ‘the cars in front of the house’
(ii) The predicative function:
Predicative adjectivals, on the other hand, function as subject complements and
therefore normally follow the noun phrase expressing the entity that they describe:
As subject complement in linking sentences (12.1.1.2):
(5) Ağaç yüksek.
tree tall
‘The tree is tall.’
(6) Çocuk yedi yaş-ın-da.
child seven age-NC-LOC
‘The child is seven years old.’
As subject complement in small clauses (24.5):
(7) [Ev beş yatak oda-lı] say-ıl-ır.
house five bed room-ADJ consider-PASS-AOR
‘The house can be considered five-bedroomed.’
(8) [Selim-i zengin] say-mı-yor-um.
Selim-ACC rich regard-NEG-IMPF-1SG
‘I don’t regard Selim as rich.’
However, in accordance with the general principles affecting word order in the sentence,
it is possible for a predicative adjective to precede the subject noun phrase; see 23.3.2,
e.g. example (57).
15.2 ADJECTIVES
From the point of view of form we can divide adjectives into two main groups, according
to whether or not they contain a productive derivational suffix (7.2). Adjectives such as
düşmanca ‘hostile’, başarılı ‘successful’, or bilimsel ‘scientific’ are derived by means of
a productive suffix (in this case -CA, -lI or -sAl), and therefore have a predictable
semantic relationship with an item from another word class (in this case the nouns
düşman ‘enemy’, başarı ‘success’ and bilim ‘science’).