Next up we have the evidential copula -(y)mİş. Like the past copula, it is also used to turn nouns into predicates. Example:

(Apparently) That car was new.

O araba yeniymiş.

What makes the evidential copula tricky is this: it can convey the meaning of past, or it can convey the meaning of heard-aboutness without being in the past. Take a look at these examples:

Evidential copula combined with	Turkish	English
Continuous	öl-üyor-muş-uz	(Apparently) We were dying.
Future	Film az sonra bit-ecek-miş.¹	(Apparently) The movie is going to end in a bit.
Obligation and Necessity	Küçük kardeşim ödevini yap-malı-ymış.	(Apparently) My little sibling should have done his/her homework.
Conditional	Görevinizi yap-sa-ymış-sınız	(Apparently) If you had done your duty
Aorist	Her sabah süt iç-er-miş-im.²	(Apparently) Every morning I drank milk.

¹Here the -mİş only conveys the meaning of heard-about. So even though we have -miş it's not in the past.

²Here the -mİş conveys a past habit and that the speaker heard this from other sources, that he doesn't remember this first-hand.

Evidential copula does not combine with regular past tense. That is to say forms like -Dİymİş, yaptıymış does not exist.

However evidential copula combines with evidential past tense, and it gives a unique meaning:

Evidential copula combined with	Turkish	English
Evidential Past	Gülmüş-müş-üm.	(Allegedly, supposedly) I laughed (but I believe I didn't.).

Evidential copula can be combined with conditional copula, which you will see in part 3 of the copula series.

Usages of uslu

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