The Converb -(y)AlI ('since/ever since')

The converb -(y)AlI marks the starting point of a stretch of time: "ever since X happened". Seni göreli çok oldu — "it's been a long time since I last saw you". Its whole job is to pin down the moment a duration began, and that is why it so naturally pairs with a main clause that measures that duration — … olalı … oldu, "(ever) since X, so much time has passed". Where English uses a finite clause behind the conjunction since ("since he came"), Turkish folds the entire "since"-clause onto a single bare verb stem.

What -(y)AlI does

-(y)AlI attaches to a verb stem and means "since / ever since (the moment that) X happened". The clause names the event that opened the time span; the main clause then either states how much time has elapsed since then, or describes a state that has held continuously from that point onward.

Notice there is no separate word for "since" anywhere — taşınalı, bırakalı, tanışalı each carry the whole "since X" idea by themselves. This is the central mental shift for an English speaker: do not translate since as a conjunction and then build a finite clause behind it. The "since" lives in the suffix, and the verb under it stays tenseless.

The signature pattern: -(y)AlI … oldu

The most idiomatic use of -(y)AlI is with a main clause that measures the elapsed time, built on olmak ("to become / to happen") in the -DI past: … -(y)AlI … oldu, literally "since X-ing, it has become (so much time)". This is how Turkish says "it's been [X] since…".

The literal logic is worth unpacking: geleli üç gün oldu is "[since he-came] three days have-become". The amount of time is the subject of oldu; the -(y)AlI clause is an adverbial that fixes the starting line. English inverts the focus — it makes "it" the subject ("it's been three days") and pushes the event into a since-clause. Turkish puts the duration up front as a real quantity and lets oldu assert that it has accumulated.

The continuous-state reading: "ever since…, X has been the case"

Besides measuring time, -(y)AlI introduces a state or change that has held uninterruptedly from the starting point to now. Here the main clause is usually a present continuous or a perfect-flavoured past, and the sense is "ever since…, things have been (a certain way)".

In all three, the -(y)AlI clause sets a boundary in the past and the main clause reports what has been true on this side of that boundary, right up to the moment of speaking. The "continuous, up-to-now" feel is intrinsic; you do not add anything to get it.

The form: -(y)AlI and its variants

-(y)AlI harmonises two ways in its vowels, taking the low vowel a or e from the last stem vowel. The buffer -y- appears after a vowel-final stem.

So gel- gives geleli, git- gives gideli (with the regular t → d softening seen in gidiyor, gitti), başla- gives başlayalı, gör- gives göreli, ye- gives yiyeli (with the yemek stem change). Note that the suffix uses the low vowel a/e — not the high vowel of -(y)IncA — so it is two-way, not four-way, harmonic.

A common spoken variant doubles the construction as -(y)AlI(dAn) beri, adding the ablative postposition beri for emphasis — geleliden beri, gideli beri — but the plain -(y)AlI already carries the full meaning, and the bare form is the standard one.

-(y)AlI vs -DAn beri: the verb-based "since" vs the noun-based "since"

This is the contrast that matters most, and the one English speakers most often get wrong. Turkish has two "since"s, and they take different kinds of complement:

• -(y)AlI attaches to a verb and means "since (the event of) X-ing happened". The starting point is an action.
• -DAn beri is the postposition beri governing the ablative case, and it attaches to a noun or time expression: sabahtan beri ("since morning"), 2010'dan beri ("since 2010"), o günden beri ("since that day").

The rule of thumb: if the "since" is followed in English by a noun or a clock/calendar phrase ("since Monday", "since 2010", "since the war"), use -DAn beri. If it is followed by a verb / a happening ("since I came", "since she left", "since we moved"), use -(y)AlI. You can turn a verb into a noun-style "since" — geldiğimden beri ("since the time I came", using the -DIK participle plus ablative beri) — and that is also correct, but -(y)AlI is the tighter, more idiomatic verb-based form and the one a native speaker reaches for first.

Common mistakes

Using -DAn beri where the "since" governs a verb (the single most common English-speaker error):

Putting a tense on the -(y)AlI verb (it must stay a bare stem):

Choosing the high vowel as if this were -(y)IncA (it is two-way, low-vowel harmonic):

Forgetting the buffer -y- after a vowel-final stem:

Translating the elapsed-time frame word-for-word from English and making "it" the subject:

Key takeaways

• -(y)AlI marks the starting point of a duration: "ever since (the event of) X happening", with the verb under it always a bare, tenseless stem.
• Its signature pattern is "[stem]-(y)AlI [amount of time] oldu" = "it's been [amount] since [event]" (geleli üç gün oldu), where the duration is the real subject.
• It also introduces a continuous, up-to-now state: "ever since…, X has been the case" (yağmurlar başlayalı sokağa çıkamıyoruz).
• It is two-way (low-vowel) harmonic — -alı / -eli — with a buffer -y- after a vowel (okuyalı).
• The key contrast: -DAn beri for a noun/time word ("since Monday"), -(y)AlI for a verb/event ("since I came"). English's single word since hides this split.