Now we're going to talk about the ablative case in Turkish. The ablative case is a set of
endings which follow the rules of two-way vowel harmony and are commonly used as the equivalents of the English expressions
from, of
because of, via
through, and the comparative than.
Let's look at how we're going to form the ablative case in Turkish, so let's say we want to say
"from the house"
we'll start with the Turkish word for house, "ev"
and
choose the appropriate version of the ablative case ending according to the rules of two-way vowel harmony, so for "ev" we're going to choose
"-den" of our four options "-dan, -tan, den, and -ten" so you can choose "-den"
"evden"
"from the house," so if we want to say in Turkish
"I am coming from the house" will simply say "evden": from the house
I am coming: "geliyorum"
"Evden geliyorum." I am coming from the house
so the ablative
ending in this case carrying the meaning of motion from. Let's look at another example if
you want to say in Turkish "a
silver bracelet"
literally "a bracelet from silver, a bracelet made from silver"
We can again use the ablative case ending so we would start with the Turkish word for silver: "gümüş"
and
choose the appropriate version of the ablative case ending. Now, Turkish
consonants are divided into voiced consonants and what are called voiceless consonants
Voiceless consonants in Turkish include
"p, t, k, s, ş, ç, f, and h"
Notice that the word "gümüş": silver, ends in one of these voiceless consonants, "ş"
What does that mean for us in terms of adding the ablative case ending to "gümüş"? It means that instead of choosing
"-dan" or "-den" we have to choose one of the two versions of the ablative case
ending which begin with a voiceless
consonant
"t" so we're going to choose the version of the ablative case ending which
Agrees not only in terms of vowel harmony with the vowel in "gümüş" but also
has a voiceless consonant to match the voiceless consonant that "gümüş" ends with so in...
So we will say "gümüşten"
from silver or of silver
We wanted to say "a bracelet of silver or a silver bracelet," so we will
next add the Turkish word a or one, "bir" and
finally the word for bracelet
"bilezik"
so a
silver bracelet or
literally from silver or of silver with the ablative case ending a bracelet
Let's look at another example
Remember we can use the ablative case to form comparatives as well, so if we want to make the sentence
"Boston is smaller than New York"
We will add the ablative case ending to New York to create the meaning "than New York"
Let's take a look at how we're going to do that, so
"Boston is smaller than New York". Let's start with the word "Boston"
then, "New York"
We want to add the ablative case to "New York"
notice New York ends in a "k"
One of our voiceless consonants, this means we're going to choose either "-ten" or "-tan" our
versions of the ablative case ending that begin with a voiceless with the voiceless consonant "t" in the case of New York
vowel harmony, two-way vowel harmony tells us it's going to be "-tan": "New Yorkttan"
Because "New York" is a proper noun the name of a city we are going to have to remember to insert a
Little apostrophe between
the name "New York" now
"New York" and the ablative case ending so "Boston, New York'tan,"
Boston, than New York
"daha": more
"küçük": small
So we've literally got "Boston than New York, more small" or as we'll translate it "Boston is
smaller
than..." we get the "than" meaning from this ablative case ending, "-tan" "New York"
Boston is smaller than New York
"Boston New York'tan daha küçük"
Let's look at one more example
We can add the ablative case ending on top of a
plural ending, plural suffix or
also on top of a possessive suffix. Let's look at what it looks like when we add the ablative case ending to a
possessive suffix, so
we saw how to say "I am coming from the house"
Let's see how we would say "I am coming from my town." We will start with the Turkish word for town
"kasaba"
We want to say "my town," so we're going to add the possessive
suffix
"-m"
my town: "kasabam"
Then we'll simply add the ablative case ending to the end of the word after our possessive suffix
So we will look at our options
"kasabam" doesn't end in a voiceless consonant, so we're going to choose either "-dan" or "-den"
our two-way vowel harmony rules tell us
We're going to choose "-dan": "kasabamdan..."
From my town I am coming, "...geliyorum"
So "I am coming from my town" we use the ablative case