Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar

Turkish: A comprehensive grammar 450
‘I have to spend the whole summer working’.
B.– Peki, sen bu yaz evini satmayacak mıydın?
‘But weren’t you planning to sell your house this summer?’
28.3.4.9 yok ‘but’
Yok can be used as an adversative discourse connective in the second of two consecutive
conditional sentences. In each sentence the conditional verb is marked with -(y)sA (27.1–
3), and the two conditions expressed are mutually exclusive. Yok is placed at the
beginning of the second sentence, and may optionally be followed by the conditional
conjunction eğer ‘if’ (27.1.2):
(72) [Mehmet ikiye kadar gelirse] iyi. [Yok (eğer) o saate kadar gelmemişse]
daha fazla bekleyemeyiz.
‘[If Mehmet arrives by two o’clock], that’s fine. [But if he hasn’t come by that
time], we won’t be able to wait any longer.’
28.3.5 EXPANSIVE
This group of conjunctions and connectives are used to signal an expansion of the
speaker’s statement. Expansion may take the form of exemplification, particularization,
analogy, explanation, justification, correction or (in the case of a negative statement)
amplification. Şöyle ki always precedes the comment it introduces; the others, with the
exception of the expansive suffixes in (ii), are likewise often placed at the beginning of
the second conjunct, but in colloquial speech they can also follow the second conjunct or
can occur in some position within it.
(i) örneğin/mesela/sözgelişi/sözgelimi ‘for example’ örneğin and its Arabic synonym
mesela are the most frequently used expressions in the exemplifying group:
(73) Nane bazı şeylerle çok iyi gidiyor, örneğin kuzu etiyle.
‘Mint goes very well with some things. With lamb, for example?
(ii) -(y)DI…-(y)DI, -(y)mIş…-(y)mIş, yok…yok ‘…and the like’, ‘etc.’
In colloquial usage these reduplicative forms perform another kind of exemplifying
function, listing some of the possible items in a set. Two of the connectives in this group
are the copular markers -(y)DI and -(y)mIş (8.3.2). The listed items marked in this
manner usually precede the general term (indicated by italics below) referring to them:
(74) Yanın a kağıttı, kalemdi, sınav için ne gerekliyse al.
‘Take with you all that you need for the exam, paper, pencils and what have you’
(75) Koşmakmış, yüzmekmiş, hiç öyle sporla filan uğraştığı yok.
‘S/he is not interested in sports at all, like running, swimming, etc.’
Reduplicated yok, also an informal way of listing items, is used in a different way. It
allows the speaker to express his/her frustration with a particular situation. Each
statement that follows yok is presented by the speaker as an untenable excuse or an
unrealistic wish. These statements often contain the evidential copula -(y)mIş.