Learn Turkish

Lesson 9: The imperative forms of yemek and demek

The verbs yemek and demek change the e in their stem to an i when followed by a y:

As a reminder, here are the functions of the three forms of the imperative again:

1. The first form is used for addressing a single person informally
2. The second form is used for addressing a single person politely or multiple people informally
3. The third form is used for addressing a single persons in a very formal way or multiple people politely

While yemek can be both transitive and intransitive, demek is always transitive. What do those mean you say?

Transitivity is a linguistic term that is related to a verb's relation with objects. Some verbs take one object (e.g "I love you."), some take two (e.g "I told John₁ to go₂.", and some take none (e.g "I ran."). Verbs that do take an object (or two objects) are called transitive. Verbs that do not take objects are called intransitive.