Verb Phrases in Language Syntax

1. THE VERB PHRASE • A verb phrase consists of a verb, its complements, and adverbials that modify the verb. • At its simplest, a verb phrase consists of an (inflected) verb alone: • (1) Oturuyorum. • ‘I am sitting down.’ • (2) shows a verb phrase consisting of a verb and an adverbial: • (2) Yavaş yürü. • ‘Walk slowly.’

2. (3) shows a phrase consisting of a verb, its complement (the direct object suyu‘water’) • and three adverbials (yavaşça ‘slowly’, sürahiden ‘from the jug’, masadaki bardağa ‘into • the glass on the table’): • (3) Suyu yavaşça sürahiden masadaki bardağa döktü. • ‘S/he slowly poured the water from the jug into the glass.’

3. Both main clauses (4) and subordinate clauses (bracketed section in (5)) contain verb • phrases. Most examples in this chapter are sentences consisting of only one (main) • clause. • (4) Ahmet çay-ı bardak-tan iç-ecek. • ‘Ahmet will drink the tea from a glass.’ • (5) [Ahmet-in çay-ı bardak-tan iç-me]-si gerek-iyor-du. • ‘Ahmet was supposed to drink the tea from a glass.’

4. CONSTITUENTS OF THE VERB PHRASE • THE VERB • The internal structure of a verb phrase depends primarily on the transitivity or • intransitivity of the verb. This distinction relates to the ability of a verb to take a direct • object. Verbs which cannot take direct objects such as git- ‘go’, düş- ‘fall’, • otur- ‘sit’, kork- ‘be afraid (of)’, sevin- ‘be happy (about)’ are intransitive: • (6) Londra’ya gidelim. • ‘Let’s go to London.’ • (7) Ayşe çok hızlı koşuyordu. • ‘Ayşe was running very fast.

5. Verbs such as asye- ‘eat’, gör- ‘see’, yaz- ‘write’, boya- ‘paint’, on the other hand, have • direct objects (bold in the examples below), and are thus transitive: • (8) Erol duvar-lar-ı yanlışlıkla boyamış. • ‘Apparently Erol painted the walls by mistake.’ • (9) Bugün sınıfta çok önemli konular işledik. • ‘Today in class we covered [some] very important topics.’

6. COMPLEMENTS OF THE VERB • In a verb phrase, a complement is a constituent that ‘completes’ the meaning of the verb,and that stands in a particular structural relationship to it. The complement of a verb isalways a noun phrase, which can be simple or complex

7. Direct object • A direct object denotes a person or thing which is brought into being, or to whichsomething is done, by the action of the subject. • 12) Bir mektup yaz-dı-m. • a letter write-PF-1SG • ‘I wrote a letter.’

8. Oblique object • Oblique objects denote persons or things which are not directly affected by the action ofthe verb but which are an integral part of its meaning

9. ADVERBIALS • The adverbials in a verb phrase modify the verb by describing: • (i) Its destination or target (indicated by the dative case marker): • araba-ya(git-) ‘(go) to the car’ • ayna-ya(bak-) ‘(look) in the mirror’ • oğlan-a (paket-i ver-) ‘(give the package) to the boy’

10. (ii) Its location (indicated by the locative case marker): • kanape-de (uyu-) ‘(sleep) on the sofa’ • biz-de (kal-) ‘(stay) at our place’ • durak-ta (otobüsbekle-) ‘(wait for a bus) at the bus stop’

11. iii) The source of the action or the space through which an action takes place: • büro-dan(kağıtlar-ı al-) ‘(take the papers) from the office’ • mutfak-tan (yemeğ-i getir-) ‘(bring the food) from the kitchen’ • evlerinüstün-den (geç-) ‘(pass) over the houses’

12. (iv) The manner in which the action takes place indicated by: • the comitative/instrumental marker • bıçak-la (ekmekkes-) ‘(cut bread) with a knife’ • a simple adverb • yavaş (yürü-) ‘(walk) slowly’ • a derived adverb • korkak-ça(kaç-) ‘(run away) in a cowardly fashion’ • an adjective used adverbially • güzel (oku-) ‘(study) well’

13. Çeviriler

14. 23. İnsan, Japonya’yı boydan boya trenle gezebilir ve bir istasyonda durduğunda, bir taşra kentini ötekinden ayırt etmenin hemen hemen imkânsız olduğunu hisseder. • 24. Romancı Thomas Hardy, özyaşam öyküsünde babasından, “kalkınmakta olan kırsal topluluklarda gereksinim duyulan sanat ve becerilerin çoğuna sahip ender insanlardan biri” olarak söz eder.

15. One can travel the length and breadth of Japan when stopping at a station, that it is almost impossible to distinguish between one provincial town and the next. • In his autobiography the novelist Thomas Hardy describes his father as “one of those rare people who possessed most of the arts and skills needed in thriving rural communities”.

16. 1. Aydan bakıldığında dünya, uzayın karanlık boşluğunda bir yaşam vahası olarak  görünmektedir. • 2. Bugün Batı üçüncü Dünya ülkelerine borç para verme tekniğini, onları kontrol altında tutma aracı olarak mükemmelleştirmiş bulunmaktadır.

17. Viewed from the moon, the earth appears as an oasis of life in the dark emptinessof space. • Today, the West has perfected the technique of lending money to the Third World countries as a means of controlling them.

18. 4. Bizimki, seksen kadar çalışanı ile sebze ve tarla bitkilerinin genetik iyileştirilmesi üzerine ileri düzeyde araştırma yapan bir bitki biyoteknolojisi şirketidir. • 5. Son birkaç yıl içinde, gökbilimciler, kendi sistemimizin ötesindeki bir düzineden fazla yıldız sisteminde Jüpiter büyüklüğünde dev gezegenler ortaya çıkarmışlardır.

19. Ours is a plant biotechnology company with approximately eighty employees carrying out advanced research into the genetic improvement of vegetable andfield crops. • In the past few years, astronomers have detected giant, Jupiter-sized planets in more than a dozen star systems beyond our own.