Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar

show it to me?’
(133a) could be from a newspaper report:
(133)
göstersene.
‘I’ve heard you’ve planted an oak tree; why don’t you
(a) İki tarafın temsilcileri Hilton Oteli’nde bir araya geldiler.
‘Representatives of the two sides met at the Hilton Hotel.’
(b) (Ahmet, having read this news, relaying it to Gürkan:)
İki tarafın temsilcileri Hilton Oteli’nde bir araya gelmişler.
If the information received and transmitted by a speaker is anything other than a
completed, past-tense event, the evidential copular marker -(y)mIş is used. Unlike the
verbal suffix -mIş, the copular -(y)mIş has no tense or aspect content. The aspectual
meaning of a sentence with -(y)mIş is identical with that of the same sentence without
evidential marking. However, the fact that not more than one copular marker may appear
together on one verb gives rise to an ambiguity of tense reference (non-past/past) in -
(y)mIş sentences, which can be resolved only by a time adverbial or by the discourse
context:
(134)
(a) (Ayşe, to Çiğdem): Annem biraz rahatsız.
‘My mother is not very well.’
(b) (Çiğdem, to Nesrin): Ayşe’nin annesi biraz rahatsı-mış.
unwell-EV.COP
‘It seems Ayşe’s mother is not very well’
(135)
Turkish: A comprehensive grammar 310
(a) (Ayşe, to Çiğdem): O gün annem biraz rahatsızdı.
‘My mother was not very well that day.’
(b) (Çiğdem, to Nesrin): O gün Ayşe’nin annesi biraz rahatsızmış.
‘Apparently Ayşe’s mother was not very well that
day.’
The information-based evidential is relatively uncommon in the 1st and 2nd persons. In
1st person utterances it may express information that the speaker has acquired from
others about what s/he did when too young to remember, or while asleep or unconscious:
(136) [Bir yaş-ın-da-yken] kalp ameliyat-ı ol-muş-um.
one age-NC-LOC-CV heart operation-NC AUX-EV.COP-1SG
‘I had a heart operation [when I was a year old].’
Alternatively, it may express what the speaker presents as a view of him/her held by other
people:
(137) Sözde inatçı-ymış-ım.
supposedly obstinate-EV.COP-1SG