Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar

When the numerals from yüz ‘(one) hundred’ to katrilyon ‘quadrillion’ are in their
multiple forms, they are preceded by lower numerals:
üç yüz ‘three hundred’
kırk iki bin ‘forty-two thousand’
dokuz milyon altı yüz altmış bin ‘nine million six hundred and sixty thousand’
yüz ‘hundred’ and bin ‘thousand’ are not preceded by bir when they indicate ‘one
hundred’ and ‘one thousand’ (thus yüz ‘one hundred’, bin ‘one thousand’), but milyon,
milyar, trilyon and katrilyon are (i.e. bir milyon ‘one million’, etc.).
Turkish has three different words for half. yarım behaves just like a cardinal numeral,
and is used only when referring to one half of an entity on its own: yarım bardak ‘half a
glass’, yarım portakal ‘half an orange’. The concept and a half is expressed by the word
buçuk, e.g. iki buçuk ‘two and a half’. The expression, yarı ‘half’ is (i) a noun used as the
head of a partitive construction (see 14.5.3) and (ii) an adverb of degree (16.5). çeyrek ‘a
quarter’ is the only numeral which needs a conjunction: üç ve bir çeyrek ‘three and a
quarter’. Note that a construction without the conjunction (and bir) indicates a totally
different numeral: üç çeyrek ‘three-quarters’.
‘Quarter’ can also be expressed as dörtte bir (‘one out of four’). This structure, which
contains the locative suffix -DA, is one of the means for expressing fractions: (3/4) dörtte
üç ‘three-quarters’, (2/3) ‘üçte iki ‘two-thirds’. The other way of expressing fractions is
by using the expression bölü ‘divided by’: (2/5) iki bölü beş ‘two-fifths/two over five’.
Decimals are expressed by the whole number followed by virgül ‘comma’ or by a
fraction: (3,32) üç virgül otuz iki, ‘three point three two’, (5,6) beş onda altı ‘five [and]
six-tenths’. yüzde expresses per cent: yüzde beş (%5) ‘five per cent’. These structures are
used as the heads of genitive-possessive constructions (14.4) when expressing either the
full number or the entity or set of which the fraction is a part:
(64) yirmi-nin sekiz-de yedi-si
twenty-GEN eight-LOC seven-3SG.POSS
‘seven-eighths of twenty’
(65) para-mız-ın yüz-de doksan beş-i/%95’i
money-1PL.POSS-GEN hundred-LOC ninety five-3SG.POSS
‘95% of our money’
When fractions follow whole numbers they are expressed without conjunctions: üç onda
dokuz ‘three [and] nine-tenths’. Conjunctions are also not used when two numerals are
juxtaposed to give an approximation: bir iki dükkan ‘one or two shops’ (cf. 28.1).
It should be noted that, unlike determiners, numerals can occur in noun phrases that
have either indefinite or definite status. They can be combined with some determiners
(see 15.9.1). In general, a noun phrase containing a numeral cannot have plural marking
(see 14.3.1.1).
15.7.2 ORDINAL NUMERALS
Ordinal numerals are formed by the suffix -(I)ncI (7.2.2.2), e.g. altıncı ‘sixth’, yüzbeşinci
‘one hundred and fifth’:
(66) ikinci öneri
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