Direct Object in Nominal Sentences in Turkish

There are two types of sentences in Turkish according to the type of predicate: nominal sentences and verbal sentences. In the Turkish sentence the basic component is a predicate; sentences do not hold without predicates. The predicate of verbal sentences is a verb while the predicate of the nominal sentence is a noun. The other components of the Turkish sentence, other than the subject and predicate- the main parts of the sentence- are the direct object, the indirect object, and the adverb. Direct object is a component in a sentence which refers to the person or thing receiving the action of a transitive verb. The accusative case is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object In Turkish. If the object is specific it takes –(y)i suffix, but if the object is non-specific this suffix is not used. According to this there are two types of objects: definite and indefinite objects. Sometimes direct objects are single words; other times they are phrases or clauses. The direct object occurs in a sentence whenever the verb is transitive. Since nominal sentences in Turkish do not have verbs at all, it is impossible for a nominal sentence to have a direct object. Despite this widespread view of nominal sentences, our studies show that some types of nominal sentences in Turkish contain a direct object. The aim of this article is to demonstrate in examples how and in what instances nominal sentences in Turkish can have direct objects.

Keywords

syntax, noun sentence, sentence elements, object, transitive verbs