Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar

Turkish: A comprehensive grammar 306
Note that zorunda also has an obsolescent synonym mecburiyetinde (from mecburiyet
‘obligation’). The use of durumunda in this construction is slightly more formal than
zorunda, and is not favoured by all speakers.
All four versions of the statement in (118) refer to an obligation that is presented as
existing at the moment of speech but not (yet) fulfilled. In many contexts they could be
used interchangeably. However, apart from the fact that the constructions with şart and
zorunda express a stronger, more unavoidable obligation than those with gerek, lazım or
gerek-, there is a more fundamental difference between -mAlI (118a), on the one hand,
and all the lexicalized constructions (118b–d) on the other. -mAlI expresses an obligation
perceived or imposed by the speaker (speaker-generated), while the lexicalized
constructions present an objective obligation, that is, one arising from external factors
operating independently of the speaker. The difference corresponds roughly to that
between ‘must’ and ‘have to’ in English.
In addition to the personalized forms illustrated in (118), objective necessity can also
be expressed impersonally, with a -mAk clause (24.4.1.1) as the subject of lazım or gerek-
:
(119) [Burasını da doldurmak] gerekiyo mu?
‘Is it necessary to/Does one have to fill in this part as well?’
Speaker-generated obligation: -mAlI
A sentence marked with -mAlI that has a 1st person subject expresses an action which the
speaker feels obliged (often morally obliged) to perform (but has not yet done so):
(120) Mustafa’ya yardım etmeliyiz.
‘We must help Mustafa.’
Where the subject is 2nd or 3rd person the utterance is tantamount to the speaker’s
imposing an obligation on that other person or persons:
(121) Önce annene sormalısın.
‘You must first ask your mother.’
Sometimes the 3rd person singular form is used with impersonal meaning:
(122) Bence bu sorunu bir an önce halletmeli.
‘If you ask me, this problem ought to be solved as soon as possible.’ (lit. ‘one
ought to solve…’)
The affixation of -mAlI to a negative stem expresses an obligation not to behave in a
certain way:
(123) [Beni gördüğün]-ü hiç kimseye söyle-me-meli-sin.
tell-NEG-OBLG-2SG
‘You mustn’t tell anyone [that you saw me].’
The addition of the past copular marker -(y)DI to -mAlI produces one of two possible
meanings: