Academic Turkish has one overriding goal: to remove the author from the text. Where English academic prose still tolerates "I argue that…" and "we found…", scholarly Turkish systematically erases the personal agent and replaces it with impersonal passives, the assertive copula -DIr, and the formal present -mAktAdIr. The result is dense, verb-final, suffix-stacked prose that you decode not by guessing at a subject but by peeling suffixes off the final verb. This page teaches that decoding skill and the four features that define the register.
The formal present: -mAktAdIr
Everyday Turkish reports ongoing or general facts with the present continuous -(I)yor (görülüyor "it is seen / is being seen"). Academic Turkish prefers the heavier, more formal -mAktA (literally "in the state of doing"), almost always closed with the assertive -DIr, giving -mAktAdIr. It states a process as an established, ongoing fact, with no hint of a speaking "I".
| Verb | Everyday -(I)yor | Academic -mAktA(dIr) | Gloss |
|---|---|---|---|
| görmek (see) | görülüyor | görülmektedir | it is (being) seen / observed |
| artmak (increase) | artıyor | artmaktadır | it is increasing |
| göstermek (show) | gösteriyor | göstermektedir | it shows / indicates |
| bulunmak (be found) | bulunuyor | bulunmaktadır | it is found / located |
Bu sonuçlar, hipotezi açık biçimde desteklemektedir.
These results clearly support the hypothesis. (formal present -mAktAdIr; academic)
Son yıllarda kentsel nüfus hızla artmaktadır.
In recent years the urban population has been increasing rapidly. (academic statement of an ongoing trend)
The -DIr at the end is not optional decoration: it raises the sentence to the register of a confident scholarly claim. Note the consonant hardening — after a voiceless consonant -dIr surfaces as -tIr (artmakta + dır → artmaktadır keeps d after the vowel of -tA, but çalışmaktır hardens), so always check the preceding sound.
The assertive copula -DIr
On a noun or adjective, -DIr is the third-person copula in its assertive form. In speech you usually omit it (Sonuç açık "The result is clear"), but academic writing keeps it to assert a definitional truth: Sonuç açıktır "The result is clear (and this is asserted as fact)." It harmonizes (-dır/-dir/-dur/-dür) and hardens to -tır/-tir/-tur/-tür after a voiceless consonant.
Bu yaklaşım, alanyazındaki en kapsamlı modeldir.
This approach is the most comprehensive model in the literature. (assertive -DIr on a noun: modeldir)
Elde edilen bulgular istatistiksel olarak anlamlıdır.
The findings obtained are statistically significant. (assertive -DIr on an adjective: anlamlıdır)
Impersonal passives: where the agent disappears
The signature move of academic Turkish is the agentless impersonal passive, formed with the passive suffix -Il-/-In- plus the verb ending. The doer is deliberately deleted; the focus falls on the action or finding. Whole paragraphs proceed without a single human subject.
| Active idea | Academic passive | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| (we) examine | incelenmektedir | it is (being) examined |
| (we) addressed | ele alınmıştır | it has been addressed / taken up |
| (we) obtained | elde edilmiştir | it has been obtained |
| (we) observe | gözlemlenmektedir | it is observed |
| (we) propose | önerilmektedir | it is proposed |
Bu çalışmada iklim değişikliğinin tarım üzerindeki etkileri ele alınmıştır.
In this study, the effects of climate change on agriculture have been addressed. (impersonal passive ele alınmıştır; no agent)
Örneklem, üç farklı bölgeden seçilmiş ve anketler yüz yüze uygulanmıştır.
The sample was selected from three different regions and the surveys were administered face to face. (chained impersonal passives)
İki değişken arasında güçlü bir ilişki bulunduğu görülmektedir.
It is observed that there is a strong relationship between the two variables. (görülmektedir frames a finding impersonally)
For an English speaker the trap is expecting a personal subject. Turkish academic prose has, in effect, no first person — "I examined" becomes "it is examined", "we conclude" becomes "it is concluded" (sonucuna varılmaktadır). Stop looking for who did it; the register has removed the doer on purpose.
Nominalization and suffix-stacking
The second pillar of the register is nominalization: turning verbs and clauses into nouns so they can be embedded as the subject or object of another clause. The verbal-noun suffixes -mA, -DIk, and -(y)Iş convert "X happens" into "the happening of X", and these noun phrases then pile up. The effect is long, abstract, modifier-front noun chains — the genitive-possessive izafet machinery doing structural work.
Sıcaklık artışının buzulların erimesine yol açtığı bilinmektedir.
It is known that the rise in temperature leads to the melting of the glaciers. (nominalized clause artışının … açtığı as the known fact)
Verilerin yeniden değerlendirilmesi, önceki bulguların gözden geçirilmesini gerektirmektedir.
The re-evaluation of the data necessitates a review of the previous findings. (two -mA nominalizations chained as subject and object)
Because everything is verb-final and suffix-stacked, you read these sentences from the inside out: find the final verb, peel its suffixes, then identify which nominalized chunk fills its subject and object slots.
A short academic sentence, parsed
Take: "Bu çalışmada, kentleşmenin hava kalitesi üzerindeki etkileri incelenmektedir."
- Bu çalışmada — "in this study" (locative frame, the impersonal scene-setter).
- kentleşme-nin — "of urbanization" (genitive; the -nin marks the possessor in an izafet chain).
- hava kalitesi üzerindeki — "on air quality" (hava kalite-si "air quality" with izafet -si; üzerinde-ki "the one on").
- etki-leri — "the effects (of it)" (plural + 3rd-person possessive, completing the izafet started by kentleşmenin).
- incele-n-mekte-dir — peel it: root incele- "examine" + passive -n-
- formal present -mekte
- assertive -dir = "is being examined".
- formal present -mekte
Whole sentence: "In this study, the effects of urbanization on air quality are examined." No "I", no "we" — the finding stands on its own, exactly as the register intends.
Common mistakes
❌ Bu çalışmada ben iklim verilerini inceledim.
Incorrect — first-person ‘ben … inceledim’ breaks the impersonal academic register; too personal for a methods statement.
✅ Bu çalışmada iklim verileri incelenmiştir.
In this study, climate data have been examined. (impersonal passive, no agent)
❌ Sonuçlar hipotezi destekliyor.
Incorrect — present continuous -(I)yor is too colloquial for a formal claim in an article body.
✅ Sonuçlar hipotezi desteklemektedir.
The results support the hypothesis. (formal present -mAktAdIr)
❌ Bu model en kapsamlı model.
Incorrect — dropping the copula leaves the definitional claim sounding casual/spoken.
✅ Bu model en kapsamlı modeldir.
This model is the most comprehensive one. (assertive -DIr asserts it as established)
❌ Biz örneklemi üç bölgeden seçtik.
Incorrect — ‘biz … seçtik’ injects a first-person agent where the register wants the agent deleted.
✅ Örneklem üç bölgeden seçilmiştir.
The sample was selected from three regions. (agentless impersonal passive)
❌ Sıcaklık artıyor ve buzullar eriyor diye biliniyor.
Incorrect — stringing finite -(I)yor clauses with ‘diye’ is conversational; academic prose nominalizes.
✅ Sıcaklık artışının buzulların erimesine yol açtığı bilinmektedir.
It is known that the temperature rise causes the glaciers to melt. (nominalized, impersonal)
Key takeaways
- Academic Turkish erases the author: no first person, agents deleted into impersonal passives (incelenmektedir, ele alınmıştır).
- The formal present -mAktAdIr replaces everyday -(I)yor for stating processes as established facts.
- The assertive -DIr turns a statement into a confident scholarly claim, on both verbs and nouns; it harmonizes and hardens to -tIr after voiceless consonants.
- Nominalization (-mA, -DIk, -(y)Iş) plus izafet chains produce long, abstract, modifier-front noun phrases.
- Decode every sentence from the final verb outward — peel the suffixes, then fit the nominalized chunks into the subject and object slots.
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Start learning Turkish→Related Topics
- The Formal Present -mAktA(dIr)C1 — The written, authoritative present-progressive -mAktA / -mAktAdIr — a register-marked equivalent of -(I)yor built on the locative of the -mAk infinitive.
- The -DIr Suffix: Assertion and RegisterB2 — The third-person copular -DIr is optional in everyday Turkish but adds formality, marks generic truths, and signals confident inference ('must be') — common in encyclopedic and scientific prose, yet stilted in casual conversation.
- Impersonal and Generic StatementsB2 — How Turkish says 'one', 'you', or 'people in general' — chiefly through the impersonal passive of intransitive verbs.
- Bureaucratic and Legal StyleC1 — The grammar of Turkish officialdom — depersonalized obligation through passives, gerekmektedir and -(y)AcAktIr, formal modals, izafet document chains, and frozen formulae like gereği için.