Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar

(i) In the great majority of cases it gives a counterfactual reading (cf. 21.4.1.3). In
other words, it indicates that an obligation perceived by the speaker was not fulfilled at
the time that it obtained.
(124) O para-yı geri ver-meli-ydi-n.
that money-ACC back give-OBLG-P.COP-2SG
‘You ought to have given that money back.’ (But you didn’t.)
(ii) In the context of a narrative, -mAlIydI sometimes projects an obligation on to an actor
at a particular juncture in the narrative. The outcome of this obligation is unknown at this
point in the story, i.e. the question of actualization remains open:
(125) Hüseyin artık karar vermeliydi. Herkesi bu kadar oyalaması ayıptı.
‘Hüseyin must now take a decision. It was disgraceful for him to keep everyone
waiting so long.’
Deductions expressed with olmalı (discussed above in 21.4.1.4 (vi)) constitute a quite
different kind of speaker-generated necessity.
Objective necessity and its actualization
As in the case of objective possibility, the choice of grammatical marking for the
predicate not only indicates tense and aspect, but also distinguishes between statements
or questions which imply the actualization (fulfilment) of the obligation and those which
do not carry such an implication.
Non-actualized obligation
The means of expressing a non-actualized obligation existing at the moment of speech
were discussed above in connection with (118). In a narrative context, an obligation that
arose in the past can similarly be presented without indicating whether the obligation was
fulfilled or not. This is done by adding the past copular marker to any of the structures
exemplified in (118), as in (126), where the listener/reader is not informed at this stage
whether or not the narrator actually went on to say something:
(126) Herkes bana bakıyordu. Artık bir şey söylemem gerekiyordu/söylemek
zorundaydım.
‘Everyone was looking at me. Now I had to say something.’
The forms lazımdı and gerekiyordu can also be used counterfactually, like -mAlIydI,
discussed above:
(127) Dünkü toplantıda bu konuyu konuşmamız gerekiyordu.
‘We were supposed to discuss this at yesterday’s meeting.’ (But we didn’t.)
Actualized obligation
The suffixes -DI, -mIş and -(y)AcAK imply the actualization of an obligation (because of
its unavoidable nature). The suffix -(I)yor, on the other hand, is ambiguous with regard to
actuality. The constructions that occur with actualizing meaning are:
(i) -mA-POSS gerek-
Tense, aspect and modality 307