Posted 13 December 2011 - 03:28 PM
Hello sufler..
I'm glad that this question is finally asked..It is a very basic point in Turkish sentence structure, which is , naturaly, a complex issue, and I was waiting for someone who would be interested in that.. A word like 'bıraktığımız' includes a grammar concept which sounds totally unfamiliar to an English speaker . I think some books claiming to be helpful for learners make the process of learning even more difficult, by creating an impression that 'ki' can be used whenever neessary , to be replaced with that, who etc. But the story is different. Yes, there are some instances that 'ki' can be used for that, etc. But this 'ki' should be examined from different points, namely, the situations that necessitate the use of ki, yet other situations that it can be used for stylistic purposes, and some situations that although gramatically it is possible to use 'ki' in the sentence, it is never used. It should also be taken into consideration that there is not only one 'ki' in Turkish, but two 'ki's as well, with different grammatical functions. The 'ki' which is necessarily used strats a whole new sentence.
Having said that, let me write a few examples that ki can be used or not, depending on your style, whether you need a special emphasis or not:
A line from a song, where ki is used just for style:
O günki gördüm seni : The day I saw you. Here the emphasis put with 'ki' is no different than saying in English: The day when I saw you. Actually , 'seni gördüğüm gün' is the ususal and expected way of saying 'the day I saw you.'
Onu bulduğum gün herşeyi anlatacağım: The day I find him I will tell(him) everything.
Onu bulduğum gün herşeyi anlattım: The day I found him I told (him) everything.
First , please note that from the 'onu bulduğum gün' part, we cannot know when the even took place or possibly will take place. Only from the second part ,including a conjugated verb we know: Anlattım ( I told) or anlatacağım ( I will tell).
Now let's see if 'ki' is possible or not here. Only if we intend to put a very special emphasis we can say 'o günki onu buldum' :the day when I found him. If no intend of emphasis is felt , such a sentence will sound pretty artificial.
There is another use of ki which starts, or, introduces a new sentence, but maybe I shouldn't write about it now.
Turning back the comparasion of 'ki' with 'bulduğum, gördüğüm', etc, let me write down a few more examples:
Geldiğini duydum : I heard that you came/he came.
Again, 'duydum:I heard' tells us the time of the event.
We can also talk about 'ki': Duydumki gelmişsin .I heard that you came. Or, duydumki gelmiş: I heard that s/he came.Please note that we dont say 'duydumki geldi', but say, instead, 'duydumki gelmişsin'. Here the verb is not in simple past, but a kind of reported speech. The logic is simple, the use 'ki' makes the process rather indirect. So, even the use of 'ki' has to follow some rules.
I can write many more examples to show why 'ki' is not an easy alternative for who that etc, or, when an alternative, in which type of sentences. .
As to the sentence elements like bulduğum, gördüğüm, etc, the first thing to do is to learn the suffixes for each person, paying attention to the harmonies.
. Bildiğim, bildiğin, bildiği, bildiğimiz, bildiğiniz, bildikleri
Unuttuğum, unuttuğun, unuttuğu,unuttuğumuz, unuttuğunuz, unuttukları
Gördüğüm, gördüğün, gördüğü, gördüğümüz, gördüğünüz, gödükleri
Aldığım, aldığın, aldığı, aldığımız, aldığınızi aldıkları
Verdiğim, verdiğin, verdiği, verdiğimiz, verdiğiniz, verdikleri.
As you notice the so-called 'narrow' vowels, namely ı, i, u and ü are used.
Secondly, you need to know when these words tell us about the time of the event:
Geldiğini biliyorum: I know that you came
Geldiğini biliyordum: I knew that you came
Geleceğini biliyorum: I know that you will come
Geleceğini biliyordum: I knew that you would come.
Beni sevdiğini biliyorum: I know that you love me
Beni sevdiğini biliyordum: I knew that you loved me/I (already) know that you love me (this can match with the present perfect tense)
The chances to imply the time of the event is an advanced issue, but I think it is good enough for the time being to know that the two basic forms I wrote about are the most common ones.
This topic includes another grammar issue: why to add 'i' like in 'geldiğini'. In order to examine this point, a learner of Turkish should know first of all when and why /i/ (or ı, u, ü) is needed here. Assuming that you are familiar with the use of these letters (if not, please refer to my earlier post on this topic), now we can compare the following sentences:
Geldiğim zaman kimse yoktu : There was nobody around when I came
Yazdığım mektup çok uzun değildi : The letter I wrote was not very long
Tuttuğum ev denize çok uzak: The house I rented is far away from the sea
Bu benim bildiğim bir hikaye, başka bir şey anlat: This is a story I know, tell me another one (tell me something different)
The last three of the above sentences include subjects in the form we examine: The house I rented is.., the letter I wrote was not: here the subjects can clearly be seen. As to the story: This IS a story I know: In the Turkish sentence 'is=dir' is hidden, it could be like this as well: Bu benim bildiğim bir hikayedir: 'dir' is the verb, as you probably know, this is often omitted. So, 'bu benim bildiğim bir hikaye', too, is the subject of the verb, where dir is the verb. (The same thing can be observed in the third sentence: uzak is actually uzaktır, with a hidden 'tır/dır).
The first one is an example including 'zaman' or when. Now we can take a look at another way of use: as the 'object' of the sentence:
Bildiğini biliyorum: I know that you know. What do I know? What is the object of the sentence? :'bildiğini'
Geldiğini duydum : I heard that you /s/he came. What did I hear? what is the object? : geldiğini
Onu sana verdiğimi unuttum: I forgot that I gave it to you (also, I've forgotten that I gave it to you). What did I forget? onu sana verdiğimi. Shortly, verdiğimi. Verdiğimi is the object of the sentence.
So, this form too needs a suffix as other objects need, when it is the object of the sentence. What I'm trying to point out is that, the 'i' (ı,u,ü) at the end is not an inherent part of the form geldiğimi, duyduğumu etc, but it is there as it is added to other objects when necessary.. The objects and the letters to be added represent a whole grammar topic, as I explained in my earlier posts.
The first one refers to a sentence I found on a website: Bisikletimizi bıraktığımız yeri hatırlayamayacağız. It is said to mean We will not be able to remember the place where we have left our bicycles. My so-far Turkish knowledge is too little to analyze the last long word 
, but I wonder what is the function of the -ımız suffix after the verb. As far as I know bıraktık is 1st person plural past tense itself, so why to add -ımız which is possessive pronoun I suppose... "our we left"? It doesn't make sense... 
