Turkish Verbs.docVIP

Turkish Language - The Infinitive The Infinitive - description. In grammar, the infinitive is the form of a verb that has no inflection to indicate person, number, mood or tense. It is called the infinitive because the verb is usually not made finite, or limited by inflection (change in meaning - tense, person). The infinitive is often used as the noun form, as for many languages this is the basic form of a verb which is usually presented in dictionaries. In language classes, children are sometimes taught to think of it as the name of the verb. The Infinitive being the name of a verb, therefore per se it is a noun. This is characterized in English by the word - to - ie to walk, to swim. The Turkish Infinitive has four forms of the infinitive, all of which can be used as nouns and can therefore take case endings and personal pronouns when required. The Standard Infinitive ending in -mek or -mak which is often abraded to -me or -ma by dropping the final -k. Forming the Infinitive of Turkish Verbs To form the Infinitive of Turkish Verbs -mek or -mak is added to the verb stem. gelmek [gel-mek] - to come - almak [al-mak] - to take The choice of adding -mek or -mak is bound by the Rules of Vowel Harmony. There is a separate Infinitive form for the negative verb The negative is characterized with the negative particle -me- or -ma (according to vowel harmony rules) added to the positive verb stem. Thus the negative verb root becomes gelme- not come - and alma- not take. By adding the infinitive suffix -mek or -mak we arrive at the negative verbs - gelmemek [gelme-mek] - not to come - and almamak [alma-mak] - not to take. This method of forming the negative is true for all verbs in Turkish. E-Dotted Verbs For verbs of the E-Dotted Group with e i ? ü in verb stem the suffix -mek signifies the positive verb and -memek signifies the negative of the verb. Applying Vowel harmony rules then: -mek is added to verbs whose final root vowel is -e vermek [ver-mek] - to give vermemek [v