Turkish grammar

Turkish, similarly to other Turkic languages, is a highly agglutinative language, in that much of the grammar is expressed by means of suffixes added to nouns and verbs. It is also very regular, comprising few (and usually predictable) exceptions. For example, evlerden "from the houses" can be analysed as ev "house", -ler (plural suffix), -den (ablative case, meaning "from"); gidiyorum "I am going" as git "go", -iyor (present continuous tense), -um (1st person singular = "I"). It is also a very strongly left-branching language : modifiers always come before what they modify, exclusive use of postpositions, finite verbs always being at the end of a clause. There are two main classes of inflectable words, nouns and verbs, a given root being generally either verbal or nominal but not both. Another characteristic of Turkish is vowel harmony. Most suffixes have two (front/back distinction) or four (front/back + rounded/unrounded distinction) 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 evler is evlerden "from the houses" but, the ablative case of başlar "heads" is başlardan "from the heads". Verbs have six grammatical persons (three singular and three plural), various voices (active and passive, reflexive, reciprocal, and causative), and a large number of grammatical tenses. Meanings such as "not", "be able", "should" and "if", which are expressed as separate words in most European languages, are usually expressed with verbal suffixes in Turkish. A characteristic of Turkish which is shared by neighboring languages such as Bulgarian and Persian is that the perfect tense suffix (in Turkish -miş-, -müş-, -mış-, or -muş-) often has an inferential meaning, e.g. geliyormuşum "it would seem (they say) that I am coming". Verbs also have a number of participial forms, which Turkish makes much use...