Adjectives from Verbs (Participles as Modifiers)

English builds "the man who came" with a relative pronoun — who, which, that — followed by a little clause. Turkish has no relative pronoun at all. Instead it converts the verb into a participle, an adjective made from a verb, and stands it in front of the noun like any other adjective. "The man who came" is literally "the came-man": gelen adam. This page introduces the four participles you meet most often as modifiers, and shows how each one points the noun toward a different role in the underlying verb. It is the attributive preview of the full relative-clause system.

The big idea: participle, not pronoun

In English, the noun comes first and the relative clause trails after it: the train [that is coming]. In Turkish the order is flipped and there is no linking pronoun: the participle sits before the noun, in the slot where an ordinary adjective goes. Compare kırmızı tren "the red train" and gelen tren "the incoming train / the train that is coming" — grammatically kırmızı and gelen occupy the same position. Gelen is just an adjective that happens to be made from the verb gelmek "to come."

So the mental move for an English speaker is: stop looking for "who/which/that." It does not exist. The verb itself becomes the adjective, and it goes in front.

-An: the actor, "the one that does/did"

The -(y)An participle (see the -An participle) describes the noun as the doer of the verb — the subject of the action. Gelen "(the one) coming/that came," ağlayan "(the one) crying," koşan "(the one) running." It is tense-neutral; context tells you whether it is present or past.

• gelmek "come" → gelen "incoming, who comes/came"
• ağlamak "cry" → ağlayan "crying, who cries" (buffer y after the vowel)
• yazmak "write" → yazan "who writes/wrote"

-mIş: the result, "the X-ed thing"

The -mIş participle (see the -mIş participle) describes the noun as something that has undergone the action — the result of a completed, often passive-flavoured event. Kırılmış cam "broken glass" (glass that has been broken), yazılmış mektup "a written letter" (one that has been written), solmuş çiçek "a wilted flower."

• kırılmak "be broken" → kırılmış "broken"
• yazılmak "be written" → yazılmış "written"
• pişmek "be cooked" → pişmiş "cooked, done"

-(y)AcAK: the prospective, "the X-to-be-done"

The -(y)AcAK participle (see the -AcAK participle) marks the noun for an action yet to happen — the thing to be done, read, eaten. Okunacak kitap "the book to be read," yapılacak iş "the work to be done," yenecek bir şey "something to eat." English often renders this with "to be Xed" or a "to-"infinitive.

• okumak "read" → okunacak "to be read"
• yapmak "do" → yapılacak "to be done"
• yemek "eat" → yenecek "to be eaten / to eat"

-DIK: when the noun is not the doer

The participles above work cleanly when the noun is the subject of the verb (gelen adam — the man does the coming). But when the noun plays some other role — object, place, time — Turkish switches to the -DIK participle (see the -DIK participle) carried in a possessed form that names the real subject. "The book I read" is okuduğum kitap — literally "my-read book," where the possessive -um "my" encodes "I" as the reader and kitap is the thing read. This is the heart of Turkish relativization and gets its own full treatment; here it is enough to recognize the shape.

• okumak "read" → okuduğum kitap "the book (that) I read"
• görmek "see" → gördüğün film "the film (that) you saw"
• oturmak "sit/live" → oturduğumuz ev "the house (where) we live"

A note on -lIk forms like satılık

Don't confuse a verbal participle with the derivational suffix -lIk. Satılık ev "house for sale" looks verb-related (satmak "to sell"), but satılık is a fixed adjective derived with -lIk, not the -(y)AcAK participle (satılacak "to be sold" also exists, with a slightly different, more event-specific flavour). Satılık labels the house's status — "for-sale" as a category — the way kiralık means "for rent." Learn these -lIk words as vocabulary, separate from the productive participles.

How this differs from English — and even from other languages

Two shifts matter. First, word order: the whole clause becomes a pre-nominal adjective, so everything that English puts after the noun, Turkish puts before it — including long, multi-word descriptions. The man who came to the door yesterday surfaces as [yesterday to-the-door came] man. Second, no relative pronoun: there is nothing answering to who/which/that/where/when. Even within Indo-European, that is striking — French, Spanish, German all have relative pronouns. Turkish encodes the noun's role entirely through the choice of participle and, for non-subject roles, through the possessive on it.

Common mistakes

The recurring error is reaching for ki or a "who/which" word, or putting the noun before its modifier. Both come straight from English; both must be dropped.

Key takeaways

• Turkish has no relative pronoun. A verb becomes a participle — an adjective — and goes before the noun: gelen adam "the man who came."
• -An marks the noun as the doer (ağlayan çocuk "the crying child").
• -mIş marks it as the result of the action (kırılmış cam "broken glass").
• -(y)AcAK marks it as yet to be done (okunacak kitap "the book to be read").
• -DIK (in a possessed form) is used when the noun is not the doer (okuduğum kitap "the book I read").
• Beware look-alike -lIk adjectives like satılık "for sale" — these are derived words, not participles.
• This is the attributive preview; the full machinery, including subject vs. non-subject choice, lives in the relative-clauses overview.