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 ​ 'dish of stuffed vine leaves' sarma ​'don't wrap'
mısır ​ 'corn' Mısır ​ 'Egypt'
bebek 'baby' Bebek 'a town in Ä°stanbul'
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Taken from Aslı Göksel and Celia Kerslake, Turkish: An Essential Grammar (London: Routledge, 2005), 11.