Gerunds / Adverbial Clauses

Gerunds (zarf-fiiller / ulaçlar) turn a verb into an adverb, forming clauses of time, manner, sequence or condition. Most take no personal ending: tense and person come from the main verb. Vowel-final stems take the buffer y (okuyup, okuyarak, okuyunca).

Common Gerund Suffixes

• -ip / -ıp / -up / -üp: "and (then)"; links two actions of the same subject.
  Eve gelip yemek yedim. (I came home and ate.)
  Kalkıp pencereyi açtı. (He/She got up and opened the window.)
• -(y)erek / -(y)arak: "by …-ing", "…-ing" (manner or simultaneous action).
  Koşarak geldi. (He/She came running.)
  Müzik dinleyerek ders çalışır. (He/She studies while listening to music.)
• -ince / -ınca / -unca / -ünce: "when", "as soon as".
  Eve gelince seni arayacağım. (I'll call you when I get home.)
• -ken: "while", "when". It never changes for vowel harmony and attaches to a tense form (usually the aorist -r/-mez or -iyor), never to a bare stem; with nouns and adjectives it means "when (I) was…" (-yken after vowels).
  Ben uyurken o geldi. (He/She came while I was sleeping.)
  Çocukken çok oynardım. (When I was a child, I used to play a lot.)
  Hastayken bile çalıştı. (He/She worked even while ill.)
• -meden / -madan: "without …-ing"; with önce, "before …-ing".
  Kahvaltı yapmadan çıkma. (Don't go out without having breakfast.)
  Yatmadan önce dişlerini fırçala. (Brush your teeth before going to bed.)
• -(y)eli / -(y)alı: "since".
  Seni görmeyeli yıllar oldu. (It's been years since I last saw you.)
• -dikçe / -dıkça / -dukça / -dükçe (-tikçe / -tıkça / -tukça / -tükçe after voiceless consonants): "the more…", "whenever".
  Çalıştıkça öğrenirsin. (The more you study, the more you learn.)
  Onu gördükçe gülümsüyorum. (Whenever I see him/her, I smile.)
• -(y)e … -(y)e / -(y)a … -(y)a (repeated stem): continuous or repeated action.
  Koşa koşa geldi. (He/She came running all the way.)
  Ağlaya ağlaya anlattı. (She told it in tears.)

Related Time Clauses

For "when", "after" or "because" with their own subject, Turkish uses -dik + possessive + a case ending or postposition: Sen geldiğinde (when you came), Ders bittikten sonra (after the class ended), Hasta olduğu için (because he/she is ill). (See the Participles lesson.)

Common Mistakes

• -(y)ip with different subjects: Ben gelip o gitti ✗ → Ben geldim, o gitti ✓
• -ken on a bare stem: gelken ✗ → gelirken / geliyorken ✓
• Adding tense to -(y)ip: geldip ✗ → gelip ✓
• -arak vs -ıp: gülerek konuştu (he/she spoke laughing) (at the same time) vs oturup konuştuk (we sat down and talked) (one after the other)