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Turkish Word Stress

Words in Turkish are usually stressed on the last vowel.

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elbise       'dress'

adam        'man'

uzun          'long'

gelir           'income'

kalabalık   'crowded'

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When suffixes are added to a word that has final stress, the stress moves to the last suffix.

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bahçe                    'garden'

bahçede                'in the garden'

bahçedeki             'the one in the garden'

bahçedekiler         'the ones in the garden'

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But when a suffix is added to a word that has its syllable on a syllable other than the last, the stress remains where it is.

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Placing the stress in the correct position in a word is important as words my change their meaning according to the position of the stress.

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sarma                     â€‹ 'dish of stuffed vine leaves'             sarma                     â€‹'don't wrap'

mısır                     â€‹    'corn'                                                     Mısır                     â€‹   'Egypt'

bebek                       'baby'                                                    Bebek                    'a town in Ä°stanbul'

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wordstress
turkishstressrules

Taken from Aslı Göksel and Celia Kerslake, Turkish: An Essential Grammar (London: Routledge, 2005), 11.

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