Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar

(35b) and the counterfactual meaning ‘would have…’ (21.4.1.3), which occurs most
typically in the main clause of certain types of conditional sentence.
21.3.3 EVENTS AND STATES
There is a close interaction between aspect marking and the event/state distinction.
Although both events and states can be presented from an imperfective viewpoint,
perfective aspect occurs only in the expression of events. A number of Turkish verbs,
particularly those expressing a bodily posture or a psychological state (perception,
cognition or emotion) have a dynamic (event) meaning when used in a perfective form,
and a stative (state) meaning when used in a progressive form. Some examples are given
below.
Event State
dur- ‘stop’ ‘stand’
otur- ‘sit down’ ‘be sitting’
yat- ‘lie down’, ‘go to bed’ ‘lie’, ‘be in bed’
uyu- ‘fall asleep’ ‘be asleep’
tanı- ‘recognize’ ‘know’
The effect of aspect marking on the meaning of these verbs is illustrated below:
(36)
(a) Tülay yan-ım-a otur-du. (Event)
Tülay side-1SG.POSS-DAT sit-PF
‘Tülay sat down beside me.’
(b) Yemek-te Tülay yan-ım-da otur-uyor-du. (State)
dinner-LOC Tülay side-1SG.POSS-LOC sit-IMPF-P.COP
‘Tülay was sitting beside me at dinner.’
In the case of psychological verbs, such as sevin- ‘be glad’ (and some others, such as üşü-
‘(begin to) feel cold’), there is often a high degree of interchangeability between a
perfective -DI or -mIş (expressing entry into a state) and a progressive -(I)yor (expressing
the state itself):
(37)
(38)
Tense, aspect and modality 291
(a) [Mehmet-in gel-eceğ-in]-e sevin-di-m. (Entry into state)
Mehmet-GEN come-VN-3SG.POSS-DAT be.glad-PF-1SG
‘I was/I’m glad [to hear] that Mehmet’s coming.’
(b) [Mehmet’in geleceğin]-e sevin-iyor-um. (State)
-IMPF-1SG
‘I’m glad Mehmet’s coming.’