Proto-Turkic/Past tenses and vowel harmony

Welcome to the fourth lesson of Proto-Turkic!

Past tenses
There are two forms of past tense in Proto-Turkic:

1. Past tense seen or clear (*-di, *-dï, *-ti, *-tï)
The past tense, which we call the seen or clear past tense, is used when an event is encountered in the first degree. Even if it is clear, you cannot use this past tense in the case of history that you are not contemporary with. The certainty that is meant here is that the person is sure of what s/he sees. But this includes other sense organs. If you heard the sound of rain and you are sure that it is rain, you can use this past tense, but if you learned from the television news that it is raining, you cannot use this past tense even if you are sure of it. Another example; If you did not feel the earthquake, you cannot use this past tense. This past tense is actually the first-order witnessing past. The reason why I call it so is that it is also refer to as the past tense seen in Turkish.


 * It rained – Yagmur yagdï.
 * S/he sit – Olturtï

Contrast in Proto-Turkic
Contrary to modern usages, as in Old Turkic and Volga Bulgar language, the consonants l, r and n are followed by the strong consonant form (-t-); any other sounds are followed by the soft consonant form (-d-).


 * flew - *učdï
 * walked - *yüridi
 * gave - *bērti

Exceptions
If something has become an indisputable truth, this supplement can be used even if it is not witnessed. For example, it is not wrong to use the past tense suffix when saying Edison invented the light bulb. But it is not wrong to use the other past tense in the same way either.

2. Past tense heard or unclear (*-miĺ, *-mïĺ)
The past tense heard is a past tense that we use when we witness any event at a second or higher degree. What is meant by hearing is a partially obligatory term since no one was a first-degree witness in the event, but if you learned about an event that you did not witness first-degree by using your sight on television or your hearing on the radio, you would still use this past tense suffix. The term past tense heard is symbolic.

Its usage areas are also quite wide. This past tense is used in non-contemporary historical events. This suffix is used necessarily in literary works such as fairy tales, epics and partially in literary works such as novels and stories. You also often use this past tense suffix when gossiping with your friends. :)


 * s/he knelt down - *čökmiĺ
 * s/he came - *kẹlmiĺ

Past tense of past tense (*-miĺ erti, *-mïĺ erti)
These two past tense suffixes can be combined for the past tense of the past tense. This suffix is defined as *-miĺ erti with *-tur- (to stand) and *er- (to be (auxiliary)) in Proto and serves as the past of the past. The reason why it is not directly combined with the affix *-ti is that the verb cannot take the tense a second time after taking the tense once.


 * First of all, he observed you for me. - İlik seni beniŋ üčün tẹrkemiĺ erti.

Present tense of the past tense (*-miĺ turur, *-mïĺ turur)
The present tense of the past tense is provided with *-tur- (to stand) and *er- (to be (auxiliary)) just like noun phrases. Because the verb that takes the tense once, again cannot take the tense a second time.

In modern Turkish, while the past tense with *-miĺ is mostly used in colloquial language, *-miĺ turur is used instead of *-miĺ in literature and history. Because values related to the past, such as the birth, achievements and death of someone, are always the same characteristics that do not change.


 * Mustafa Kemal Ataturk died in 1938. - Mustafa Kemal Atatürk 1938(bïŋ tokuŕ yǖŕ otuŕ sẹkiŕ)'de ölmiĺ turur.

Past tense of the present tense (*-ür ermiĺ, *-ur ermiĺ, *-r ermiĺ, *-ür erti, *-ur erti, *-r erti)
The past tense of the present tense can be compared with the English used to tense. Usage distinctions are also distinguished by first-order and two- or more-degree testimony.


 * She used to come every day. - Ol bārča kün kẹlür erti.


 * My mother used to go to my father's grave every day. - Anam bārča kün atamnïŋ yẹbegine barur ermiĺ.

Past tenses in noun clauses
Non verbs cannot directly take past tenses. The verb Proto-Turkic *er- (to be (auxiliary)) takes the past tense suffix and with it the meaning of the past tense is provided.

A: It was a house. - Eb erti.

B: No, brother/old man told (me). It was a hut. - Yōk, ĕčey tēdi. Koĺ ermiĺ.

Personal inflection in past tense seen
In the Proto-Turkic language, the personal inflections only exists in certain tenses, including the past tense seen. It is an inflection for person and numbers, so instead of using **bẹ erti for synthetic tenses, Proto-Turkic has (bẹ) ertim "I was" (pronouns were optional!). We will explain these endings in Lesson 8: Verbals.

! !Singular !Plural It differs in the first person plural in most modern Turkic languages such as Oghuz, Kipchak, Karluk branches. It uses the component *-k instead (*ertik).
 * First Person
 * ertim
 * ertimiŕ
 * Second Person
 * ertiŋ
 * ertiŋiŕ
 * Third Person
 * erti
 * (unclear)
 * }
 * erti
 * (unclear)
 * }

Vowel Harmony
Vowel harmony is an important feature in Proto-Turkic. Most Turkic languages, except Uzbek, preserved the feature. That is, words with final back vowels are always suffixed with back vowel variants, never front variants, and vice versa. Unlike Korean, Finnish, Hungarian, and Mongolian, there is no neutral vowels in Proto-Turkic. It specifically means that:
 * Words with the last vowel in a, ạ, ï, o, and u always take suffixes with back vowel variant.
 * Words with the last vowel in e, ẹ, i, ö, and ü always take suffixes with front vowel variant.
 * If the suffix has rounded variants, words with the last vowel in o and u always take back unrounded variant, while ö and ü always take back unrounded variant.

Many suffixes has two variants, back or front variants. The Proto-Turkic suffixes are usually has final low vowels (-A-) or (both rounded and unrounded) high vowels (-X-), but also sometimes rounded high vowels alone (-U-), as in the case of the suffix *-ur, and sometimes unrounded high vowel vowels alone (-I-).

In the next lessons, you will see -A-, -I-, -U- and -X- for the suffixes' names instead.

Further discussion for the accusative case can be found at Lesson six: Genitive, accusative and dative cases.

Next lesson: Vocabulary