Now I'm going to talk about how to form negative yes/no questions using the reported past tense in Turkish, so
questions, which we could translate into English as
"Didn't I apparently go to Istanbul when I was a baby?" or
"Didn't John apparently shake the President's hand while he was at the White House?"
Let's look at how we'll form them
We'll start with the verb stem and we'll add
the
appropriate form of the negative suffix according to the rules of two-way vowel harmony just as if we were forming a negative
statement in the reported past tense so then get
Ben gitme...
then to this negative suffix
we'll add the appropriate form of the reported past tense suffix according to the rules of four-way vowel harmony
so notice two-way vowel harmony, four-way vowel harmony
Ben gitmemiş
But we want to ask...so this statement "ben gitmemiş"
Okay
We want to make this a question
So we'll start a new word with our question particle, the appropriate form according to the rules of four-way vowel harmony
Ben gitmemiş mi...
Now we, just as in affirmative yes/no questions in the reported past tense
We're actually going to add our personal suffix directly to the question particle, so
Ben gitmemiş mi...im?
Turkish doesn't like to see these two vowels next to each other so we need a buffer "y"
"Ben gitmemiş miyim?": Didn't I apparently go?
Sen gitmemiş...
question particle, new word
Sen gitmemiş misin?
"Sen gitmemiş misin?": Didn't you apparently go?
O: He she or it
Gitmemiş mi?
Biz gitmemiş mi...iz?
And again we need that buffer "y" between these two vowels
"Biz gitmemiş miyiz?": Didn't we apparently go?
Siz gitmemiş misiniz?
Didn't you apparently go?
and finally, "onlar": they
Gitmemiş...
Now we're going to add the personal suffix if we want it. It's optional
directly to get "gitmemiş"
Following the rules of two-way vowel harmony, so
Gitmemişler mi?
Didn't they apparently go?
Let's look at an example with another verb "okumak": to read
So we want to ask "didn't I apparently read?"
"Okuma..." two-way vowel harmony
"-mış..." four-way vowel harmony
question particle, "mı"
personal suffix "-yım"
"Okumamış mıyım?": Didn't I apparently read?
Sen okumamış...
notice "gitmemiş, gitmemiş, gitmemiş" these are all the same
and we'll have the same situation here
Okumamış mısın?
Didn't you apparently read?
O okumamış mısın?
Didn't he or she apparently read?
Biz okumamış mıyız?
didn't we apparently read?
Siz okumamış mısınız?
Didn't you guys/didn't you formal apparently read? And finally, "onlar"
Okumamış...
Optional "-lar"
mı?
Didn't they apparently read?
One thing to notice
Rather than... because the negative suffix follows the rules of two-way vowel harmony
Even though for "okumak"
If we wanted to make an affirmative statement in the reported past tense we would say "okumuş"
But because we're adding this negative suffix
the
reported task ending follows the rules of vowel harmony and
harmonizes with the negative suffix rather than with the original verb stem because
The negative suffix is the syllable immediately adjacent to it
And that's how you form negative yes/no questions in the reported past tense.