Nominative

The nominative indicates the subject; that which is predicated in the sentence. It can also indicate the target of address, and names for qualified objects. For example:

It can also function as a predicate, for example:

Genitive

The genitive indicates the thing that possesses, and is primarily a qualifier but can function as a predicate, for example:

The genitive can also be pronominalised, allowing the noun it indicates as possessed to be dropped. The use of the suffix -ki after it for this is optional, unless the word it is qualifying is not in the nominative case. For example:

Not using -ki here is fine as Kasim's dictionary would also be in the nominative, but:

As here Tursun's article would also take the accusative case, -ki must be used. Some nouns in the nominative act like genitive nouns, and require the nouns they qualify to take a possessive suffix. These are known as nouns in the nature of the possessive case, and produce closely bound noun phrases that are usually used in the place of one word. Qualifiers (i.e. adjectives) that come before the phrases qualify the entire phrase, not just the head word. For example:

Dative

Dative nouns are usually subordinate to verbs or verbal phrases and act as adverbial modifiers. They can also be adjectival modifiers. For example, the dative case can indicate the target of an action (usually preceded by "to" in English):

It can also indicate:

• The object of actions expressed by certain intransitive verbs
• The subject of verbs in the causative voice formed from transitive verbs
• The purpose of an action
• The instrument or price of certain actions

Accusative

Accusative-case nouns are subordinate to transitive verbs and indicate the object of their action, for example:

Sometimes nouns in the nominative case are the subject of transitive verbs, these are known as nouns in the nature of the accusative case and generalise the nature of the object, making its relation with the verb closer, and creating an object-verb phrase used in place of a simple verb. For example:

Locative

These nouns function as qualifiers (for mostly verbs, but sometimes adjectives) and signify the action's temporal or physical location. They indicate:

• The place where an action occurs.
• The time at which an action occurs, or the time for which it lasts.
• The circumstances or atmosphere in which an action occurs.
• The instrument of an action.

When subordinate to an adjective, they indicate the place or field of an activity.

When used as a predicate, they indicate the location or source of the subject.

Ablative

Ablative nouns are subordinate to verbs and sometimes adjectives and adverbs, and they mostly act as adverbial modifiers. It is usually associated with the pronoun "from" in English

When acting as an adverbial modifier, they can indicate:

• The point of departure/separation of the subject/recipient, or the object that is passed through.
• Things which are mentally distanced from the subject of an action.
• The source of an action.
• The starting point of a limit connected with an action.
• The material/components of the subject/recipient.
• A generality/group from which one or some are related to the action.
• The field covered by the action.
• The reason for the action (cause).

Ablative nouns subordinate to adjectives indicate unequal comparison. Some adjectives also sometimes require the ablative case for noun modifiers, for example:

Locative-qualitative

These nouns function as qualifiers (for almost any part of speech) and signify the word's temporal or physical location. The difference between this and the locative case is that the qualifier is not specific, but general/universal. For example:

When context is clear, it is possible to drop the noun that the locative-qualitative case noun is qualifying and use this non-dropped noun pronominally, which also takes the cases of the dropped noun.

Limitative

These nouns are subordinate to verbs and function as adverbial modifiers, and sometimes as the predicate.

When they modify verbs, they indicate the final point reached as a limit of an action, for example:

When a limitative case noun acts as a predicate, it indicates the final limit of the subject.

Similitude

Nouns in the similitude case can act as qualifiers or adverbial modifiers, in both cases they liken the quality/action to their base noun. For example:

Equivalence

Nouns in the equivalence case can act as qualifiers or adverbial modifiers, in both cases they liken the quality/action to their base noun, with respect to the level/amount/measurement. For example:

Affixes which derive nouns from nouns

Affixes which derive nouns from adjectives

Affixes which derive nouns from verbs

Degree affixes

Reduplication

This is known as "the repeated form" and emphasises that the quality is unique to a large number of things of the same type, or that the action possessing the quality indicated by the adjective is repeated many times.

Affixes that derive adjectives from nouns

Affixes that derive adjectives from verbs and adverbs

Negative judgement copula

The negative copula, emes, does not inflect for person or tense. For example:

Simple past tense

The simple past tense always indicates that the action or state expressed by the verb took place before the time of speaking, no matter the mood of the verb.

It can also be used in some special senses to indicate that the action will take place immediately, show an absolute determination to carry out the action, or indicate the sense of hypothesis.

Present perfect tense

The present perfect tense indicates the current existence of the state which the action has brought about. It differs from the simple past tense in requiring the action to be completed to a degree that it has changed the state of the object.

Past perfect tense

The past perfect tense indicates the existence of the state which the action has brought about before another related matter, or at a specific point in the past.

Present imperfect tense

The present imperfect tense indicates the present existence the state of an action that regularly/always occurs, or will occur later. This includes actions such as:

• Actions that always happen according to objective laws and logic
• Actions that express temperament/habits
• Actions which express character, special skills, etc
• Actions which indicate a job or daily activity
• Actions which always happen according to rule
• Actions that definitely will happen according to logic, or have been decided will happen.
• Actions which indicate determination or which the speaker considers will happen.

Past imperfect tense

The present imperfect tense indicates the existence the state of an action that regularly/always occurs, or will occur later, at some point in the past or before a related matter. This includes actions such as:

• An action/matter that happened continuously in the past, i.e. "used to teach"
• An intention, plan, or agreement about carrying out an action before a certain matter.
• A conjecture about an action that has not taken place, or will definitely not take place.
• When a writer is talking about things that were happening before or at the time of the event.

Present continuous tense

The present continuous tense indicates the present existence of a continuously ongoing or fixed state of an action.

Past continuous tense

The present continuous tense indicates the existence of a continuously ongoing or fixed state of an action at a previous time or before a certain matter.

Present intention tense

The present intention tense indicates the present existence of an action that has been intended or agreed upon.

Past intention tense

The present intention tense indicates the existence of an action that has been intended or agreed upon, before a certain matter.

Direct statement mood

The direct statement mood indicates that the subject matter is something the speaker knows first-hand. It is the most common mood.

Indirect statement mood

The indirect statement mood indicates that the subject matter is something the speaker knows indirectly (has learned of recently from facts/information given by others). Most often translated with the English word "apparently".

Hearsay mood

The hearsay mood indicates that the subject matter is something the speaker has heard of from others. Mostly translated with "they say that", "SUBJ has heard that", or "supposedly".

It can also be used for:

• Describing dreams
• Talking in a sarcastic manner

Subjective assessment mood

The subjective assessment mood indicates that the subject matter is something that has been assessed in a subjective manner. Usually translated with "think", "guess", or "believe".

Objective assessment mood

The objective assessment mood indicates that the subject matter is something that has been assessed according to certain facts, and it is usually translated with "looks as", "seems", "must have", etc. It does not inflect for tense, only for state.

Imperative (command-request) mood

The imperative mood, and all following moods, do not inflect based on state-tense.

The objective assessment mood indicates that the subject matter of the sentence is spoken in a matter that denotes:

• Requesting
• Instructing/ordering
• Complying
• Appealing
• Wishing

It may also indicate that the listener is being requested to wait until the subject matter has finished/ceased. The suffix -Gin can also be attached to the end of the verb to give an affectionate mood to the command/request.

Hypothesis-objection (conditional) mood

The hypothesis-objection mood can indicate either a hypothetical mood to the subject matter of the sentence, like below:

or it can indicate that the subject matter is spoken in opposition to another, as below:

Hope-polite request mood

This is formed by attaching the -iken auxiliary to the verb's hypothesis-objection mood form. The auxiliary may sometimes be omitted.

It indicates that the subject matter of the sentence is spoken in the manner of a petition, desire, or polite request.

Wish mood

This is formed by attaching the past tense direct judgement copula to the verb's hypothesis-objection mood form. The copula may sometimes be omitted.

Regret mood

Entreaty mood

Anxiety mood

The underlying structure of this is -ma+GAy+past tense direct judgement copula, but both a's are raised to i.

Necessity mood

Auxiliary Verbs and the -(I)p converb

The addition of the converb suffix -(I)p to the main verb, then followed by an auxiliary inflected verb, can indicate aspect, in a form known as the aspectual complement. Auxiliary verbs can also be used to indicate direction with verbs like bar-, kel-, ket-, (to go, to come, to leave) in a form known as the directional complement. For example:

Here the main verb is saqla- (to wait), with tur- being the auxiliary (meaning to continue; keep on, in its auxiliary form). The negative form of -(I)p is -mAy, but the suffix -mAstin can also be used, although it is considerably more informal and limited to the past tense.^[1] Example:

-(I)p, as a converb suffix, can be used in many other ways, such as to link verbs or even entire clauses and sentences. When this is done only the final verb is inflected for person and tense. For example:

The tense and person of all the verbs are indicated by the inflection of the final verb.

Aspect Infixes

Aspect infixes derive from aspect auxiliary verbs merging with verbs in the adverbial form and undergoing sound change.^[7]

Root Verbs

Some examples of root verbs include:

They cannot be broken down into any further morphemes.

Derived Verbs

A variety of verb-formation suffixes can be attached to various words (ranging from nouns and adjectives to other verbs) to form verbs. Many of these suffixes use harmonic rules/archiphonemes earlier described.

There are many other highly unproductive suffixes without many examples.

Compound Verbs

These are verbs made up of two words that have merged into one inseparable word, phonetically and semantically, and express a singular lexical meaning. For example:

The perfect participle

The Perfect Participle displays the action expressed by itself as a quality that has come into existence (i.e. has been completed).

The continuous participle

The Continuous Participle displays as a quality the continuous state or action expressed by itself.

The imperfect participle

The Imperfect Participle displays the action expressed by itself as a quality which is habitually expressed or will be expressed later, i.e. which has not been completed.

The -sh gerund

The -sh gerund expresses as an obiect an action that is neutral with respect to state. It functions as a noun in the sentence.

There are also many special cases this gerund can be used in.

• When used as the subject of a sentence that has its predicate expressed by kërek, lazim, and shert, it indicates the requirement for the action expressed by the gerund to be carried out as well as possible.
• When used as the subject of a sentence that has its predicate expressed by mumkin it indicates an estimation about the occurrence of the action.
• When used in the dative and combined with the verb toghra kelmek it indicates the need for the action to be carried out.
• When used in the dative or combined with the postposition bilen it functions as an adverbial of time, and indicates an action coming into act immediately/soon after the gerund.
• When combined with bilen it can also indicate an action an action performed as a means of carrying out another action.
• When combined with bilen qalmay it indicates that the subject is not confined solely to the action indicated by the gerund, but also carries out another action.
• When used in the dative (independently) it can indicate an adverbial modifier of direction for some verbs, or a modifier of permission with the verb bol.
• When in the ablative case as a modifier for the word meqset it indicates an action without implication.
• When combined with the posposition üchün it functions as an adverbial modifier of purpose with any verb.
• When in the accusative and in front of a simple past/imperfect present form of the same verb, it turns it into the predicate of a subordinate non-impeding objection clause. (i.e. bërishni baridu - despite my having gone)
• When in the plural form it basically indicates that the action (i) happens in many places or (ii) is repeated on many occasions. or (iii) possesses a representative character.