For convenience, I'm attaching this table with the Turkish vowels.
turkish_vowels.png
Main vowel harmony rule states:
A word should contain only front vowels or only back vowels.In Turkish, this is called
big vowel harmony (Büyük Ünlü Uyumu). Examples of suffixes which comply to the big harmony rule:
- plurality suffix -lar/-ler
- dative suffix -(y)e/a
- locative suffix -de/da (-te/ta)
- ablative suffix -den/dan (-ten/tan)
Practically it gives us the following rules of choosing the suffix vowel depending on the previous vowel:
i, ü, e, ö -> e
ı, u, a, o -> a
Examples:
arkadaş - arkadaşlar (friends)
ev - eve (to the house)
gönül - gönülde (in the heart)
İstanbul - İstanbul'dan (from Istanbul)
The second harmony type is called
small vowel harmony (Küçük Ünlü Uyumu). This harmony type requires the vowels to be:
not only simultaneously front or back (=big vowel harmony),
but also simultaneously rounded or unrounded.
Examples of suffixes which comply to the small vowel harmony rule:
- accusative suffix -(y)i/ü/ı/u
- genitive suffix -(n)in/ün/ın/un
- possessive suffixes
Practically it gives us:
i,e -> i
ü,ö -> ü
ı,a -> ı
u,o -> u
Examples:
araba - arabayı (car, direct object)
Türkiye - Türkiye'nin (of Turkey)
kız - kızı (his/her daughter)
Some Turkish suffixes break the vowel harmony rule by having only one form and not depending on the previous vowel. Examples:
-yor (present tense suffix)
-ken (corresponds to Engilsh while, when)
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