Indefinite pronouns are the words for someone, something, anyone, no one, everyone, everything — the ones you use when the identity is unknown, universal, or denied. Turkish has a tidy set of them, but one feature trips up every English speaker: words like kimse and hiçbir şey demand a negative verb even when you're translating a positive-looking English sentence like "nobody came." Get that agreement right and the rest is straightforward vocabulary.
The core set
Turkish builds most of these from a small kit: kim "who," ne / şey "thing," bir "one/a," her "every," hiç "(not) at all." Combine and you get:
| Turkish | Meaning | Used with |
|---|---|---|
| biri / birisi | someone, one of them | positive verb |
| bir şey | something | positive verb |
| bazıları | some (of them) | positive verb |
| herkes | everyone | positive verb |
| her şey | everything | positive verb |
| kimse | anyone / no one | NEGATIVE verb for "no one" |
| hiçbiri | none of them | NEGATIVE verb |
| hiçbir şey | nothing / anything | NEGATIVE verb |
A spelling point to lock in now: hiçbir and its derivatives hiçbiri, hiçbir şey are written with hiçbir as one word, but the şey stays separate (hiçbir şey). Likewise her şey "everything" is always two words, never herşey. This catches even native typists.
The positive group: biri, bir şey, herkes, her şey
These behave like ordinary nouns. They take case endings, trigger normal (positive) verbs, and need no special agreement.
Biri kapıyı çalıyor, bakar mısın?
Someone's knocking at the door, could you check?
Buzdolabında bir şey var mı yemek için?
Is there something in the fridge to eat?
Herkes burada, başlayabiliriz.
Everyone's here, we can start.
Endişelenme, her şey yolunda gidecek.
Don't worry, everything will go fine.
biri and birisi are interchangeable for "someone"; birisi just adds the 3rd-person possessive -si and feels a touch more colloquial. Both decline: birine "to someone," birinin "someone's," bir şeyi "something" (accusative).
The negative group and negative concord
Now the part that needs real attention. kimse, hiçbiri, and hiçbir şey are negative-polarity items: they live in negative environments, and when they mean "no one / none / nothing," the verb itself must also be negative. Turkish marks the negative twice — once in the pronoun, once in the verb — and the two do not cancel out. This is called negative concord.
Kimse gelmedi. — literally "anyone came-not" — "No one came."
English says "nobody came" with a single negative. Turkish says, in effect, "anyone didn't come." The pronoun kimse by itself just means "anyone"; it's the negative on the verb (gel-me-di, with the negative -mA-) that delivers the "no."
Toplantıya kimse gelmedi.
Nobody came to the meeting.
Bütün gün hiçbir şey yemedim.
I haven't eaten anything all day.
Sorduk ama hiçbiri cevap vermedi.
We asked, but none of them answered.
Onu hiçbir yerde göremedim.
I couldn't see him anywhere.
Look at every one of those: a negative-polarity pronoun (kimse, hiçbir şey, hiçbiri, hiçbir yer) paired with a negative verb (gelmedi, yemedim, vermedi, göremedim). Drop the verb's negative and the sentence breaks.
kimse: "anyone" or "no one"?
kimse is genuinely two-faced. In a plain negative statement it means no one. In a yes/no question or after "if," with a positive verb, it means anyone:
Evde kimse yok.
There's no one home.
Burada kimse var mı?
Is anyone here?
Kimse görmeden çıkalım.
Let's leave before anyone sees.
For an emphatic "absolutely no one," prefix hiç: hiç kimse (written as two words). It works exactly like kimse — still needs a negative verb — but adds force: Hiç kimse gelmedi "Not a single person came."
Case and possession on indefinites
These pronouns inflect like nouns. They take case suffixes and can be possessed:
Bunu kimseye söyleme, aramızda kalsın.
Don't tell this to anyone, let's keep it between us.
Bazılarımız erken gitmek istiyor.
Some of us want to leave early.
Note hiçbiri and bazıları are themselves built on possessives ("none of them," "some of them"), so to say "none of us / some of you" you swap the ending: hiçbirimiz "none of us," bazılarınız "some of you."
Common mistakes
❌ Kimse geldi.
Incorrect — positive verb with 'no one'; this would mean 'someone came' to a Turkish ear, or nothing at all.
✅ Kimse gelmedi.
No one came.
The classic transfer error: English "nobody came" has a positive-looking verb, so learners copy it. Turkish needs the negative gelmedi.
❌ Hiçbir şey gördüm.
Incorrect — positive verb with 'nothing.'
✅ Hiçbir şey görmedim.
I didn't see anything.
hiçbir şey "nothing" forces the negative görmedim. Without it the sentence is ungrammatical.
❌ Herşey hazır.
Incorrect — 'her şey' run together.
✅ Her şey hazır.
Everything's ready.
her şey is two words. Same for hiçbir şey (the şey stands alone), though hiçbir itself joins up.
❌ Herkes geldiler.
Incorrect — plural verb with 'everyone.'
✅ Herkes geldi.
Everyone came.
herkes "everyone" is grammatically singular and takes a singular verb, unlike its plural English meaning.
Key takeaways
- Positive indefinites — biri/birisi "someone," bir şey "something," herkes "everyone," her şey "everything," bazıları "some" — take ordinary positive verbs.
- Negative-polarity ones — kimse, hiçbiri, hiçbir şey, hiç kimse — mean "no one / none / nothing" only with a negative verb: Kimse gelmedi, Hiçbir şey görmedim.
- This double marking is negative concord: the negatives reinforce, they don't cancel.
- kimse = "anyone" in questions/conditionals (positive verb), "no one" in negatives.
- Spelling: her şey and hiçbir şey keep şey separate; hiçbir / hiçbiri join up. herkes takes a singular verb.
Related Topics
- Negative Concord: hiç, kimse, hiçbirA2 — Turkish words like hiç, kimse, and hiçbir require a negative verb — 'I saw nobody' is literally 'I didn't see anybody', and a positive verb with these words is ungrammatical.
- Quantifiers: çok, az, biraz, birkaç, her, bütünA2 — The main Turkish quantifiers and the syntax that trips up English speakers — especially that her takes a SINGULAR noun while bütün takes a plural, and that çok doubles as 'very.'
- Verbal Negation -mAA1 — The single suffix -mA that negates every Turkish verb, where it sits, how it pulls stress, and how it fuses with -yor and the aorist.
- Existential var and yokA1 — var means 'there is / exists' and yok means 'there is not'; together they form Turkish's existential and possessive predicates, replacing both 'to be' and the missing verb 'to have'.