Stajyer bugün erken geldi.

today

Breakdown of Stajyer bugün erken geldi.

• gelmek: to come
• erken: early
• stajyer: the intern

Questions & Answers about Stajyer bugün erken geldi.

Why is there no word like “the” before stajyer? How do I say “the intern” vs “an intern”?

Turkish has no definite article. Bare stajyer is understood as definite/specific from context. To make it indefinite, use bir:

• Bir stajyer bugün erken geldi. (an intern) To make it clearly specific, use a demonstrative or a possessive:
• Bu/O stajyer bugün erken geldi. (this/that intern)
• Stajyerimiz bugün erken geldi. (our intern)

Why are bugün and erken before the verb? Can I move them?

Neutral word order is Subject – Time – Manner – Verb, so Stajyer bugün erken geldi is the most natural. You can topicalize bugün by putting it first:

• Bugün stajyer erken geldi. Keep time before manner; Stajyer erken bugün geldi sounds awkward. The element right before the verb tends to be in focus (here, erken).

What’s happening morphologically in geldi? How is past tense formed?

gel- (come) + -di (simple past). In simple past, 3rd singular has no extra personal ending: geldi = he/she/it came. With vowel harmony and voicing, the past suffix appears as -dı/-di/-du/-dü or -tı/-ti/-tu/-tü:

• geldim (I came), geldin (you came), geldi, geldik, geldiniz, geldiler
• After a voiceless consonant: git-ti (he/she went).