Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar

25
RELATIVE CLAUSES
Relative clauses are complex adjectival constructions that modify noun phrases. The most
typical type of relative clause is non-finite (12.3), and contains one of the participle
suffixes -(y)An, -DIK, or -(y)AcAK, corresponding to the relative pronouns ‘who’,
‘which’, ‘that’, ‘whom’, ‘whose’, ‘where’, etc. in English. Finite relative clauses,
incorporating the subordinator ki (11.1.1.4), also occur, but the range of this type is quite
limited. For this reason, the whole of this chapter, with the exception of the last section
(25.6), is devoted to non-finite relative clauses. With the exception of ki clauses, all
relative clauses precede the noun phrase they modify, in the same way that adjectives
precede the noun they modify:
(1) küçük kız
‘the little girl’
(2) oyuncak-lar-ın-ı kır-an (küçük) kız
toy-PL-3SG.POSS-ACC break-PART little girl
‘the (little) girl who breaks/has broken her toys’
(3) her gün okul-da gör-düğ-üm kız
every day school-LOC see-PART-1SG.POSS girl
‘the girl whom I see at school every day’
(4) anne-si-yle tanış-acağ-ım kız
mother-3SG.POSS-COM meet-PART-1SG.POSS girl
‘the girl whose mother I’m going to meet’
(5) baş-ın-da şapka ol-an kız
head-3SG.POSS-LOC hat be-PART-girl
‘the girl who has a hat on her head’
Section 25.1 describes the principles of relativization and the function of the participle
suffixes. Section 25.2 discusses the distinction between restrictive and non-restrictive
relative clauses, and 25.3 deals with headless relative clauses. 25.4 examines the
expression of tense and aspect in relative clauses, and the conditions under which olan
(where this is the relevant participial form) may be omitted. For the ordering of a nonfinite
relative clause with respect to other adjectivals and determiners in the noun phrase
see 15.3.9.
25.1 PRINCIPLES OF RELATIVIZATION
The noun of the noun phrase that a relative clause modifies, i.e. the head noun, can have
one of several different relationships with the relative clause. For example, in (2) the
relationship of the target of relativization, the head noun kız ‘girl’, to the relative clause is