Saturday, July 26, 2008

I am ... using TO BE suffixes

The simplest sentences tell people something about yourself - I am a doctor, a librarian; I am sick, tired, happy. Or something about someone else - You are late, beautifulç selfish.

Present tense "To Be" suffixes are:





To turn these suffixes into sentences:

Mən kitabxanaçıyam. I am a librarian.
Let's go through this step-by-step:
Mən = I
kitabxana = bookplace, that is, library
çı = added to the end refers to the person who works in a library
yam = to be suffix - "I am" - y added because last letter is a vowel; a is due to vowel harmony.

Sən axmaqsan? Are you stupid/foolish? (voice goes up and down at the last san to indicate a question)
Yes, this is a rude thing to say! But it illustrates the point:
Sən = You (singular)
axmaq = stupid, foolish, or silly
san = to be suffix - "You are" - a is regular a because of vowel harmony with the previous vowel.


O hakimdir. He is a judge.
O = He
hakim = doctor
dir = to be suffix - "He is" - i in dir has vowel harmony with previous i in hakim.

Biz müəllimik. We are teachers.
Biz = We
müəllim = teacher
ik = to be suffix - "We are" - i to agree with previous vowel. Note that teacher is left as singular.

Siz yaxşısız. You are fine/good.
Siz = You (plural or formal)
yaxşı = fine/good
sız = to be suffix - "You are" - ı agrees with the previous ı in "yaxşı".

Onlar professordur(lar). They are professors.
Onlar = They
professor = professor
dur(lar) = to be suffix - "They are" - final lar is not necessary but may be used.

4 comments:

RB said...

Hi,

Thanks for your great blog. Small correction - it should be "kitabxanaçıyam" instead if "kitabxanaçiyəm"

Rashid

Prof Coline said...

Thanks for the correction!

Hyousetsu said...

Quick question, why are the professions like "professor" and "müəllim" left singular despite the pronouns being plural?

Prof Coline said...

In Azerbaijani they use the singular noun where we would use a plural. Müəllim and professor refer to the whole profession of teaching - as in, we are all of the profession "teacher". We all belong to this category. If the subject of the sentence is a number and noun, the noun will still be singular - as in, Dörd professor gəldi (not gəldilər).