When casting a movie, you might need to quickly group actors by what they do: "those who sing" or "the ones who fall." In Turkish, this is incredibly efficient.
Omitting the Noun: "The one who..."
You already know that adding the suffix -(y)An to a verb stem creates a describing word (a participle), like gelen adam (the coming man / the man who comes).
When the noun being described is obvious, you can simply drop it. The participle then stands alone as a noun, translating to "the one who..." or "that which...".
| The one speaking is the director. | Konuşan, yönetmen. |
| Who is the one memorizing the lead role? | Başrolü ezberleyen kim? |
Plurals and Negatives
Because these participles now act as standard nouns, you can pluralize them by attaching -lAr to talk about "those who" or "the ones who" perform an action.
| The ones running are extras. | Koşanlar figüran. |
To talk about those who don't do an action, insert the negative suffix -mA right before the -(y)An suffix. (Remember to add the buffer letter y between two vowels, resulting in -mAyAn).
| Those who do not memorize the script cannot play this role. | Senaryoyu ezberlemeyenler bu rolü oynayamaz. |
| Those who forget the script just become extras. | Senaryoyu unutanlar sadece figüran oluyor. |
Adding Case Suffixes
Just like any other noun, a nominalized participle can take case endings depending on its grammatical role in the sentence.
For example, if "those who sing" is the direct object of a verb, you must add the accusative case suffix to the end of the participle:
| The director was listening to those who were singing. | Yönetmen, şarkı söyleyenleri dinliyordu. |
Likewise, you can attach the ablative ("from/than") case suffix -dAn to make comparisons between different groups of people based on their actions:
| The ones who make us laugh are more talented than the ones who make us cry. | Bizi güldürenler, bizi ağlatanlardan daha yetenekli. |
