Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar

Questions 253
(ii) öyle mi, which is a combination of the demonstrative adverbial öyle ‘like that’
(16.4.3) and mI, and can also be pronounced
Both forms can be tagged to affirmative or negative predicates which are verbal or
nominal.
(8) Tiyatroya gitmeden önce yer ayır-t-ma-mış-tı-n, değil mi?
reserve-CAUS-NEG-EV/PF-P.COP-2SG not INT
‘You hadn’t reserved seats before going to the theatre, had you?’
(9) Esra Handan-ın abla-sı-ymış, öyle mi?
Handan-GEN elder.sister-3SG.POSS-EV.COP thus INT
‘So Esra is Handan’s elder sister, is that right?’
Questions with değil mi are unmarked tag questions, corresponding to ‘isn’t it’, ‘can
you’, etc. in English. This question type is used when the speaker seeks corroboration of
a statement that s/he believes to be true.
(10) Cemal bugün okul-a git-me-di, değil mi?
Cemal today school-DAT go-NEG-PF not INT
‘Cemal didn’t go to school today, did he?’
Tag questions with öyle mi follow a much more tentative assertion, embodying
information newly acquired by the speaker, or information that contradicts the speaker’s
previous assumption. öyle mi can also be used with the discourse connective demek ‘so’,
which expresses an inference (28.3.7).
(11) (Demek) Cemal bugün okula gitmedi, öyle mi?
‘So Cemal didn’t go to school today then?’
In (10) the speaker assumes that Cemal hasn’t gone to school. In (11), on the other hand,
the speaker voices surprise at the possibility of Cemal not having gone to school,
implying an expectation that he would have done so.
öyle mi can be used on its own as a response to new information, especially where this
has come as a surprise:
(12) A.– Bu yaz çok yağmur yağacakmış.
‘Apparently there is going to be a lot of rain this summer.’
B.– Öyle mi?
‘Really?’
Since the phrase değil is the standard form for negating the linking type of nominal
sentence (20.2 and 12.1.1.2) the sequence değil+mi is potentially ambiguous between a
direct yes/no question with a negative nominal predicate (13), and a tag question
following an affirmative nominal predicate (14). In the spoken language these two
sentences have different intonation patterns. A direct yes/no question has one intonational
phrase: a high rise followed by a fall (5.1):