The problem with "kar

I

n" 

(no, not that woman you know from Germantown...)

•

kar

I

n means belly, or is it ... 

•

kar

I

'n which means your wife, or is it... 

•

kar'

I

n which means of the snow, ...? 

Note that all three usages of "kar

I

n" are indistinguishable 

when spoken. And in addition, when you encounter them in 
written material, you won't see the use of the apostrophe! 
Apostrophe use in Turkish is generally reserved for proper 
names. 

So kar

I

n provides an example of a Turkish triple gotcha...

 

In fairness...English is so full of this kind of problem -- as in, 
"bat" meaning the flying creature or the baseball (and 
cricket?) thingy -- that our objection here may be a case of 
"the pot calling the kettle, black". But this sort of problem 
can be a little more serious in Turkish... 

You think you've got car problems? Check this out! One noun plus a simple suffix 
gives 

four

 meanings...! 

Click here 

to learn how to avoid ambiguities

in your

 own

 use of Turkish...

 

To illustrate the difficulty, we'll start with the singular of the noun Araba; Car 

[but the 

problem exists for all Turkish nouns]

 and see what happens when we add a simple suffix like 

lar

I

 giving Arabalar

I

... 

1 -

 The Turkish word Arabalar

I

 can then be used as the direct object of the 

plural of Araba, as in Arabalar

I

 onardim meaning... 

I repaired the cars 

[anybody's cars]

 

-- think of it being parsed logically as "Arabalar - 

I

", with that final "

I

" 

supplying the direct object signal. 

2 -

 Or Arabalar

I

 could represent the plural with the possessive suffix of the 

third person singular meaning 

her cars

 -- also parsed logically as "Arabalar - 

I

". 

3 -

 Or Arabalar

I

 might be used to represent the singular with the suffix of the 

third person plural meaning 

their car

 -- parsed logically as "Araba - lar

I

". 

4 -

 Finally, Arabalar

I

 could mean 

their cars

 

(plural)

... This can be because 

when lar

I

; their is suffixed to a plural noun, such as Arabalar; Cars -- then 

one lar drops out. That is, "Araba-lar-lar

I

" doesn't fly in Turkish. It becomes 

"Araba-lar

I

". 

Tricky, what?... You like?... Hmmm... You sick?

 

We didn't give sentence examples for items 

2

, 

3

, and 

4

 just above, did we? OK, 

let's do that now... 

As the subject of a sentence, we could use Arabalar

I

 like so... 

Arabalar

I

 uçurumdan uçtu

. 

And how many meanings do you think that gives? 

Let's see, there's... 

a)

 Her cars plunged off the cliff. 

b)

 Their car plunged off the cliff. 

c)

 Their cars (plural) plunged off the cliff. 

At this point do feel you might be trapped in one of those cars? Accelerating rocky-earthward -- at 32 feet 

per second, per meaning?

And if we wish to use Arabalar

I

 as the direct object of a sentence, we first tag 

it with another suffix n

I

 

(to signal its direct object status, remember)

 and then burst forth 

with stirring examples like... 

Arabalar

I

n

I

 çald

I

.

 

And how many meanings does that produce...? 

Well as a minimum, there's... 

a)

 He stole her cars, and... 

b)

 He stole their car, and ... 

c)

 He stole their cars (plural). 

So, the only way to understand the precise meaning of Arabalar

I

n

I

 çald

I

 is by 

knowing the exact circumstances of all the parties involved in the theft! 

Isn't this a bit of the ole "which-comes-first-the-chicken-or-the-egg" game? 

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка 

www

  

.  franklang

  

.  ru