Turkmen grammar () is the grammar of the Turkmen language, whose dialectal variants are spoken in Turkmenistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Russia (in Stavropol krai), China (Salar Turkmens), Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and others. Turkmen grammar, as described in this article, is the grammar of standard Turkmen as spoken and written by Turkmen people in Turkmenistan.
Turkmen is a highly agglutinative language; that is, much of the grammar is expressed by means of suffixes added to nouns and verbs. It is very regular compared with many other languages of non-Turkic group. For example, "from the villages" can be analysed as "village", -lar (plural suffix) and -dan (ablative case, meaning "from"); "I take" as al "take", (present tense) and (first person singular).
Another characteristic of Turkmen is vowel harmony. Most suffixes have two or four different forms, the choice between which depends on the vowel of the word's root or the preceding suffix. For example, the ablative case of is "from the villages" but the ablative case of "dogs" is "from the dogs".
Verbs have six grammatical persons (three singular and three plural), various voices (active, passive, reflexive, reciprocal and causative), and a large number of grammatical tenses. Meanings such as "not", "be able", "must" and "if", which are expressed as separate words in most other languages, are usually expressed with verbal suffixes in Turkmen. A characteristic of Turkmen which is shared by neighbouring languages such as Persian is that the perfect tense suffix (in Turkmen -miş, -myş) often has an inferential meaning, e.g. gelýärmiş "it would seem (they say) that he/she is coming".
Verbs also have a number of participial forms, which Turkmen makes plentiful use of. Clauses which begin with "who" or "because" in English are generally expressed by means of participial phrases in Turkmen. Meanings such as "behind", "for", "like/similar to" etc. are expressed as postpositions following the noun rather than prepositions before it.
Phonology The following phonemes are present in the Turkmen language:
Vowels Turkmen contains phonemic short and long vowels, although the vowel length other than phonemes of üý and ä is not reflected in the orthography. Turkmen also employs vowel harmony, a process that is common in fellow Turkic languages. Vowels and their sounds are as follows:
Front Back unrounded rounded unrounded rounded short long short long short long short long Close i/и i/и ü/ү üý/үй y/ы y/ы u/у u/у Mid e/е ö/ө ö/ө o/о o/о Open ä/ә a/а a/а
Some optionally mark vowel length by macrons, as in daş¹ "far", daş² "outside", and dāş "stone"; or by a colon (:), as in da:ş. Despite the fact that ⟨ä⟩ is always long, it is optionally marked with one of these diacritics above, so the letter ⟨ä⟩ in some loanwords like şäher and ähli is pronounced short. Technically, all vowels have long and short variants (if including ē and short ä), but the existence of the previously-mentioned phonemes are fairly rare. The long ē only exists in the indefinite future suffix -ēr (the front variant never appears as **-är) and its compensatory lengthening unreflected in orthography (see § Phonological processes), while the short ä only exists in Persian loans and historical fusions (alyp gitmek → äkitmek).
Long vowels cause the final voiceless consonant to be voiced; compare ōt /oːd/ with dialectal Turkish od (both mean "fire").
Examples of short and long minimal pairs Macrons are used for words containing long vowels. ShortMeaningLongMeaningat'horse'āt'name'bil'know!'bīl'waist'ot'grass'ōt'fire'pil'elephant'pīl'shovel'daş'far'dāş'stone'ýaz'write!'yāz'spring'tut'catch!'tūt'mulberry'öl'die!'ȫl'wet'Pairs without homographsōn"ten"
Vowel harmony Like other Turkic languages, Turkmen is characterised by vowel harmony. In general, words of native origin consist either entirely of front vowels (inçe çekimli sesler) or entirely of back vowels (ýogyn çekimli sesler). Prefixes and suffixes reflect this harmony, taking different forms depending on the word to which they are attached.
The infinitive form of a verb determines whether it will follow a front vowel harmony or back vowel harmony. Words of foreign origin, mainly Russian, Persian or Arabic, do not follow vowel harmony.
In addition to this backness harmony, progressive rounding harmony is also found in Turkmen. There are few suffixes which exhibits written close vowel rounding harmony, like the genitive case ending (-iň/un/ün/yn), the (nominal) possessive suffixes, and past tense suffixes, but not with mid and open vowels, where it otherwise not reflected in the orthography.
The long phonemes , , and always cancel labial harmony, while short cancels it word-finally (umūmy is still pronounced as umūmy, but umūmylyk is pronounced umūmuluk). Labial harmony in loanwords are inconsistent, and it is only works in loans that assimilated to the Turkmen phonology like Perso-Arabic loans.
Stress Turkmen stress usually falls in the last syllable, with a secondary stress in the first syllable of a word containing more than three syllables (abadan "prosperous" /ˌɑbɑˈdɑn/). The exceptions to this rule include some pre-accenting suffixes and particles (the stress moves to the previous syllable), and loanwords preserve its original stress.
Consonants Turkmen consonant phonemes (shown with the letters of the Turkmen alphabet used to represent them), not including allophones:
LabialDentalAlveolarPostalv./PalatalVelarGlottalNasalm/мn/нň/ңPlosive/Affricatevoicelessp/пt/тç/чk/кvoicedb/бd/дj/җg/гFricativevoiceless(f/ф)s/сş/шh/хvoicedz/з(ž/ж)Approximantw/вl/лý/йRhoticr/р Note that s/с and z/з represent and , which are not and , a unique feature among the Turkic languages (cf. ceceo in some Spanish dialects), it is shared by another Turkic language Bashkir, of which has both /s/~/z/ and /θ/~/ð/. The value and only exist in loanwords. /s, z/ also occurs in Russian loanwords but its pronunciation may depend on the speaker's level of bilingualism with Russian.
Sounds // are realized as fricatives [] when in intervocalic positions and when after obstruents or taps. // also spirantizes to [] in word-final positions and when before obstruents.
Sounds // are heard as back [] when within back-vowel environments.
Phonological processes These consonant combinations are pronounced differently and assimilated in spoken Turkmen: When written When pronounced(spoken) ç + d şd ç + l şl ç + j şş ş + j ç + s şs g + b gw l + d ll n + d nn s + d ss s + t t + s z + s t + ç çç z + d zz The phonemes and are deleted when succeeded by indefinite future suffix -er (see § Verbs) and preceded by an identical vowel. Thus, geler (third-person singular indefinite future of gelmek 'to go') is actually pronounced as gēr. The phonemes spirantize to before and after obstruents, after taps, word-finally, and intervocalically; and to before and after voiceless obstruents (i.e., ). For example, → .
Phonemes , , and are devoiced to , and , respectively, after voiceless consonants: e.g., → , → , etc.
Nominals Nouns Turkmen has six cases: nominative, (specifically definite) accusative, dative, genitive, instrumental/ablative and locative. Plurals are formed from -lar/ler, but it is not used when the quantity is explicit. Nouns can also take possessive suffixes, see also § Personal morphemes.
Suffixes + Case suffixes Case Turkmen name Ending Nominative Baş düşüm -∅ Accusative Ýeňiş düşüm -(n)i Genitive Eýelik düşüm -(n)iň Ablative Ýöneliş düşüm -den Locative Wagt-orun düşüm -de Dative Çykyş düşüm -e Unproductive cases Equative -çe Allative -eri, -ik Instrumental -in
Nouns ending in -ç, -k, -p, -t are voiced to -j, -g, -b, and -d in accusative, genitive, and dative endings; however, it is somewhat inconsistent as some monosyllabic nouns do not follow rules, but other monosyllabic nouns containing a long vowel which is not reflected on the Turkmen orthography, do. The Turkmen genitive exhibits written labial harmony, yielding to -iň, -yň, -uň, and -üň.
When the noun ends in -e, the accusative, genitive, and dative ending became -äni, -äniň, and -ä (these endings were pronounced with long ). Also notice that dative of vowel-ending nouns has its last letter can being removed and just simply -a or -ä. If the third-from-last vowel contain a rounded vowel, the vowels -i and -y are automatically changed to -ü and -u before locative and ablative cases (doly → doludan).
Dative, locative and ablative ending also has endings in -nden, -nde, and -ne, but it is only used when preceded by third-person singular possessive suffix (öýü, öýüni, öýünüň, öýünden, öýunde, öýune). After the second-person singular possessive suffix, the genitive ending -iň simply deletes (*öýüňiň → öýüň).
Vowel deletion As in table below, ogul becomes ogly in accusative case. This vowel deletion occurred mostly in disyllabic nouns, when the first syllable is a short open vowel (including mid vowels) and last syllable is closed, while nouns with more than two syllables only applied to nouns with -iş/-yş verbal noun suffix and compounds containing nouns which retains its vowel deletion rules. These rules only apply to singular accusative, genitive, and dative cases; also with all single singular person possessive forms.
Examples of declension Vowel lengths are included. Case Example Consonant-ending nouns Vowel-ending nouns With consonant voicing With vowel deletion Nominative Sygyr yzyna geldi. sygyr ner öý ýara gije doly köpek ogul Accusative Men sygyry sagdym. sygyry neri öýi ýarāny gijǟni dolȳny köpegi ogly Genitive Men sygyryň guýrugyny çekdim. sygyryň neriň öýüň ýarānyň gijǟniň dolȳnyň köpegiň ogluň Locative Sygyrda näme günä bar? sygyrda nerde öýda ýarada gijede doluda köpekde ogulda Ablative Bu kesel sygyrdan geçdi. Men sygyrdan ýadadym. sygyrdan nerden öýden ýaradan gijeden doludan köpekden oguldan Dative Men sygyra iým berdim. sygyra nere öýe ýarā gijǟ dola köpege ogla
Adjectives Adjectives typically come before the noun. Unlike Romance languages, adjectives does not agree with number or case of the following noun. Comparatives are made by the suffix -rek (follows vowel harmony), and superlatives are made analytically by adding iň or has before the adjective.
Pronouns Personal pronouns are inflected for cases; but unlike nouns, pronouns are inflected irregularly. Colloquially, genitive forms of singular pronouns were further fused to meň, seň, and oň, respectively. The irregular forms are in bold. + Personal pronouns 1st person 2nd person 3rd person Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Nominative men biz sen siz ol olar Accusative meni bizi seni sizi ony olary Genitive meniň biziň seniň siziň onuň olaryň Ablative menden bizden senden sizden ondan olardan Locative mende bizde sende sizde onda olarda Dative maňa bize saňa size oňa olara In addition to pronouns above, genitive pronouns can also has absolute possessive suffix -ky/ki by adding after genitive forms, resulting on forms meniňki, biziňki, seniňki, siziňki, onuňky, and olaryňky. This suffix can be also added on nouns.
The demonstrative pronouns include proximal bu and şu; medial ol and şol, and distal include all of medial demonstratives with addition of hol (all distal demonstratives are pronounced long ōl, şōl, and hōl). There are further distinctions between the demonstratives, the proximal şu is used for immediate objects while bu is for other objects; the distal hol is used for more distant objects, with remaining forms has no semantic differences (ol, şol). These demonstratives is also irregularly inflected like personal pronouns, with the oblique forms of bu, şu, ol, şol, and hol are mun-, şun-, on-, şon-, hon-; respectively.
Main interrogative pronouns include: + QuestionTranslation"what"näme"where"nire"when"haçan"who"kim"why"näme üçin"which"haýsy"how"niçik