Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar

‘[As I may not be able to persuade Coşkun about the chairmanship,] we have to
consider other people too.’
As in the case of aorist impossibility forms in finite clauses, the subordinate impossibility
combination -(y)AmAyAcAK can be used in a speculative context only when attached to
the copula/auxiliary ol-:
(117) [Osman’ın Ankara’da olamayacağın]-ı biliyordum. (cf. (106))
‘I knew [that Osman couldn’t be in Ankara].’
21.4.2.2 The expression of necessity/obligation
The grammatical marker of necessity (or obligation) in Turkish is the suffix -mAlI.
(118)
(a) Ankara-ya git-meli-yim.
Ankara-DAT go-OBLG-1SG
‘I must go to Ankara.’
Necessity is also regularly expressed by lexical means. This involves articulating the
action that is considered necessary as a non-finite noun clause (24.4.1–2), which is then
treated in one of the following ways:
(i) As the subject of a nominal sentence with gerek/lazım ‘necessary’ or şart
‘essential’ as the complement:
(118)
(b) [Ankara-ya git-me-m] lazım/gerek/şart.
Ankara-DAT goVN-1SG.POSS necessary/essential
‘I have to go to Ankara.’/’It’s essential for me to go to
Ankara.’ (lit. ‘[My going to Ankara] is necessary/essential.’)
(ii) As the subject of a verbal sentence with gerek- ‘be necessary’ as the predicate:
(118)
(c) [Ankara’ya git-me-m] gerek-iyor.
go-VN-1SG.POSS be.necessary-IMPF
‘I have to go to Ankara.’ (lit. ‘[My going to Ankara] is necessary.’)
(iii) As the modifier in a -(s)I compound of which the head is zor/ mecburiyet
‘compulsion’ or durum ‘situation’:
(118)
Tense, aspect and modality 305
(d) [Ankara’ya git-mek] zor-un-da-yım/durum-un-da-yım.
go-VN compulsion-NC-LOC-1SG/ situation-NC-LOC-
1SG
‘I have to/am obliged to go to Ankara.’ (lit. ‘I am in the compulsion/situation
of [going to Ankara].’)