Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar

fixed items, such as şimdi ‘now’, ileri ‘forward’, çabuk ‘quickly’, it includes a large
range of grammatical strategies which can be freely used in the formation of more
complex constructions.
In terms of their semantic functions, circumstantial adverbials express concepts such
as time, place, manner, reason, purpose, condition and concession. Detailed discussion is
here confined to the expression of time, place and manner. For the other categories the
reader is generally referred to other chapters in which more complex adverbial structures
are discussed.
16.4.1 TIME ADVERBIALS
In the following sections we look at the means by which various kinds of temporal
relations are expressed: location in time (16.4.1.1), duration (16.4.1.2) and frequency
(16.4.1.3). For the wide range of adverbial clauses which perform temporal functions see
26.1.2.1, 26.1.6 and 26.3.16.
16.4.1.1 Location in time
Temporal location is the time at which or within which an event happens or a state holds.
In Turkish this is often, but by no means always, expressed by locative case marking. We
first describe how clock time and dates are expressed in Turkish, and then proceed to
consider more general aspects of the subject.
Clock time
The use of the word saat ‘hour’ is optional in all expressions of clock time, and if used
must precede the numeral indicating the hour. Locations on the hour are expressed with
the locative suffix on the numeral:
(saat) altı-da ‘at six (o’clock)’
(hour) six-LOC
Turkish: A comprehensive grammar 196
For the half-hours, buçuk ‘and a half’ follows the numeral, and it is to this word that the
locative suffix is attached:
(saat) on buçukta ‘at half-past ten’
An exception is that for ‘half-past twelve’ the word yarım ‘half’ is used:
(saat) yarımda ‘at half-past twelve’
For time locations less than thirty minutes after the hour, the word geçe (the -(y)A
converb (26.3.8) of geç- ‘pass’) follows the number of minutes, which in turn follows the
accusative-marked form of the hour numeral:
(saat) ikiyi beş geçe ‘at five past two’