Lesson 32: reported Past Tense in Turkish - Conversation: Nejat's father

The subject of this lesson is the " Reported Past Tense"-"belirsiz geçmiş zaman", a form of simple past, commonly used in Turkish.

In the conversation the speaker describes a friend's father.Pay attention at the verbs in Reported Past Tense (in red), and familiarize with new words and expressions.


" Nejat'ın babası çok iyi ve değerli bir adammış. Ankara'da oturuyormuş. Dün Nejat bir telegram almış.Telegrafta " Babam çok hasta, acele gel" diyorlarmiş. Tabii Nejat çok üzülmüş. Derhal Ankara'ya hareket etmiş. İstasyonda Hasan'ı görmüş ama konuşmamış, yalnız selam vermiş, çünkü çok heyecanlıymış. Acele acele gidiyormuş."

VOCABULARI/SÖZLÜK

Değerli:               Valuable
Selam vermek :   To greet
üzülmek:             To be sorry
Heyecanlı:           Excited
Oturmak:             Here: to live (to sit)


                                               GRAMMATICAL NOTES

The REPORTED PAST, or "belirsiz geçmiş zaman" is used to express actions reportedly occurred in the past according to the pattern  "It seems that...." or similar expressions.
This tense is generally used while reporting actions or events in which the teller was not a direct witness.
The REPORTED PAST is obtained by adding specific suffixes to the infinitive stem (infinitive without -MEK or -MAK).
It is of great importance to point out as from now that those suffixes are used to build other tenses in which the idea of reported action is given.

These suffixes are  -miş  -müş   -mış  -muş  depending on the verb.

Rounded verb ( infinitives ending in -MEK) take  -miş   or   -müş   as unrounded verb (infinitives ending in -MAK) take  -mış  or muş.
The choice depends on the dominant vowel of the stem.
To sum up:

AFFIRMATIVE FORM

• Stem dominant vowel:  -i   -e     Suffix:  -miş
• Stem dominant vowel: -ü   -ö     Suffix: -müş
•  Stem dominant vowel: -a  -ı     Suffix: -mış
•  Stem dominant vowel: -u  -o     Suffix: -muş

Of course pesonal suffıxes will follow to conjugate the tense in all  persons.
The choiche of personal suffixes goes by the vowel harmony rule.See Lesson 27 as the suffixes are the same as Simple present tense except for the 3rd person singular where there is no personal suffix to be attached.

A few examples  will help uderstand this rule:

He (reportedly) went to Ankara:     O Ankara'ya gitmiş 
They (reportedly) died in a car accident:     Onlar bir yol kazasında ölmüşler
It seems that you arrived late:                      Siz geç varmışsınız

NEGATIVE FORM

Lıkewise the other tenses a "m" is to be attached between the infnitive stem and the past suffix.

Examples:

They (reportedly) have not arrived yet:    Onlar henuz gelmemişler
She seems not to have phoned his  boss:  O müdürüne telefon etmemiş

INTERROGATIVE FORM

The interrogative form is obtained in the same way as  the INTERROGATIVE FORM of the Simple present tense.
We will need to add one of the interrogative particles  -mi  -mı  -mü  -mu after the verb in reported tense and before the pronominal suffixes.

Examples:

Did you (reportedly) see him?      Onu görmüş müsün?
Has he (reportedly) arrived?          O Gelmiş mi?

INTERROGATIVE- NEGATIVE FORM

Combine together the negative and the interrogative form.
Examples:

Hasn't he (reportedly) arrived?         O gelmemiş  mi?
Didnit they (reportedly) pay the bill?   Hesap odememişler mi?


The    -miş  -müş   -mış  -muş  suffixes can also be added to nouns, adjective, adverbs.In this case they give the element they are attached to the same meaning that would be given to
verbs : "It seems that...." or similar expressions.