Turkish Relative Clauses: Master -en (Who Does) and -dık (Whom I Did)

English links a clause to a noun with who, which or that: “the man who came”, “the book that I read”. Turkish has no relative pronouns at all. Instead, the verb of the clause becomes a participle (sıfat-fiil, “adjective-verb”) and the whole clause sits before the noun, like an adjective: gelen adam (the man who came), okuduğum kitap (the book that I read). Relative clauses are often the point where intermediate learners stall, but the system rests on one decision and a small set of suffixes. This guide covers that decision, the two main participles in depth, and an overview of the others (-ecek, adjectival -miş and -ir/-mez).

The one decision: is the noun the subject?

Participle overview

1. The subject participle -(y)en / -(y)an

Formation: verb stem + -an/-en (2-way harmony), with buffer y after a vowel. The negative uses -me/-ma: gelmeyen, yapmayan.

The participle has no tense of its own: konuşan kadın can be “the woman who is speaking” or “the woman who spoke”. Context or a time word decides.

“Whose” with -en

If the head noun owns the subject of the clause, mark the subject with a possessive and still use -en:

• babası doktor olan çocuk — the child whose father is a doctor
• kapısı kırık olan ev — the house whose door is broken
• arabası bozulan komşu — the neighbour whose car broke down

-en as a noun

Drop the head noun and the participle becomes a noun: gelenler (those who came), bilen (someone who knows). Çay içenler bahçede. (The tea drinkers are in the garden.)

2. The non-subject participle -dik + possessive

Formation: verb stem + -dık/-dik/-duk/-dük (4-way harmony; -tık/-tik/-tuk/-tük after voiceless consonants) + possessive ending. The k softens to ğ before the vowel of the possessive (consonant mutation), except in the onlar form.

The possessive ending shows who does the action. If you name that person, put them in the genitive case, exactly like a possessive compound:

• Ali’nin yazdığı mektup — the letter (that) Ali wrote
• annemin yaptığı börek — the börek my mother made
• öğretmenin verdiği ödev — the homework the teacher gave

Not only objects

English uses “where”, “with whom”, “from which” and prepositions; Turkish uses -dik for all of them, and the original case simply disappears:

Negative: okumadığım kitap (the book I haven’t read), sevmediği yemek (the dish he/she doesn’t like).

The head noun takes the case of the main sentence

The relative clause and its noun behave like one noun phrase, so the head noun gets whatever case the main verb needs: Okuduğum kitabı sana vereceğim. (I’ll give you the book I read.) Sevdiğim kıza bir hediye aldım. (I bought a present for the girl I love.)

3. The future participle -(y)ecek / -(y)acak

Built like the future tense stem, with k → ğ before a vowel:

• Subject (no possessive): yarın gelecek misafirler — the guests who will come tomorrow; kalkacak tren — the train that is about to leave.
• Non-subject (+ possessive): okuyacağım kitap — the book I’ll read; taşınacağımız ev — the house we’ll move into; Ayşe’nin söyleyeceği şey — what Ayşe is going to say.

Several -ecek forms have become ordinary nouns: yiyecek (food), içecek (drink), gelecek (the future). Yapacak bir şey yok. (There’s nothing to be done.)

4. -miş as an adjective

The -miş suffix, familiar from the reported past, can describe the result of a completed action. It is common in fixed expressions and food:

• haşlanmış yumurta — boiled egg
• kızarmış ekmek — toast (lit. “browned bread”)
• donmuş göl — a frozen lake
• olmuş meyve — ripe fruit
• geçmiş — the past; dolmuş — shared minibus (lit. “filled”)

For a full clause, -miş olan is more explicit: yıllar önce yazılmış olan bir kitap (a book that was written years ago).

5. Aorist participles -(a/i)r and -mez / -maz

The aorist can also act as an adjective for permanent or characteristic qualities. You meet it mostly in compounds and fixed phrases:

• akar su — running water; çalar saat — alarm clock; döner kapı — revolving door
• tükenmez kalem — ballpoint pen (lit. “inexhaustible pen”); kırılmaz cam — unbreakable glass; okunmaz yazı — illegible handwriting
• yanardağ — volcano (lit. “burning mountain”)

In everyday sentences, -en is used instead: Akan suyu kapat. (Turn off the running water.)

Example sentences

1. Dün tanıştığım kadın Fransız. — The woman I met yesterday is French.
2. Türkçe konuşan bir doktor arıyorum. — I’m looking for a doctor who speaks Turkish.
3. Bu, en sevdiğim şarkı. — This is my favourite song (the song I love most).
4. Gittiğimiz restoran çok pahalıydı. — The restaurant we went to was very expensive.
5. Bize yardım eden adama teşekkür ettik. — We thanked the man who helped us.
6. Senin önerdiğin filmi izledim. — I watched the film you recommended.
7. Ankara’ya giden otobüs kaçta kalkıyor? — What time does the bus to Ankara leave?
8. Annemin yaptığı dolmalar harika. — The dolmas my mother makes are wonderful.
9. Yaşadığım mahalle çok sessiz. — The neighbourhood I live in is very quiet.
10. Gelecek hafta okuyacağım kitabı aldım. — I bought the book I’ll read next week.
11. Ödevini yapmayan öğrenciler kalsın. — Students who didn’t do their homework should stay.
12. Babası pilot olan bir arkadaşım var. — I have a friend whose father is a pilot.
13. Anlamadığın bir şey var mı? — Is there anything you didn’t understand?
14. Bileti olanlar lütfen içeri girsin. — Those with tickets, please go inside.
15. Kahvaltıda haşlanmış yumurta yerim. — I eat boiled eggs at breakfast.
16. Tükenmez kalemin var mı? — Do you have a ballpoint pen?
17. Kaldığımız otelin adını unuttum. — I forgot the name of the hotel we stayed at.

Common mistakes

• Using -en for a non-subject: ❌ Ali’nin okuyan kitap / ✅ Ali’nin okuduğu kitap.
• Forgetting the possessive: ❌ okuduk kitap / ✅ okuduğum kitap.
• Subject in the nominative: ❌ ben okuduğum kitap / ✅ (benim) okuduğum kitap.
• No k → ğ: ❌ okudukum, geleceküm / ✅ okuduğum, geleceğim.
• English word order: ❌ kitap okuduğum (for “the book I read”) / ✅ okuduğum kitap; the clause comes first.
• Using kim/hangi as “who/which”: ❌ Adam kim geldi… / ✅ Gelen adam…
• Keeping the original case on the head noun: ❌ yaşadığım şehirde for “the city I live in” / ✅ yaşadığım şehir (the locative belongs to the underlying sentence, not the phrase).

Mini-exercise

Turn the sentence into a noun phrase with a relative clause.

1. Adam kitap okuyor. → the man who is reading a book
2. Ben bir film izledim. → the film I watched
3. Ayşe bir ev aldı. → the house Ayşe bought
4. Biz bir otelde kaldık. → the hotel we stayed at
5. Misafirler yarın gelecek. → the guests who will come tomorrow
6. Sen bir şey söyleyeceksin. → the thing you will say
7. Çocuk sebze yemiyor. → the child who doesn’t eat vegetables
8. Onlar bir köyde doğdular. → the village they were born in

Answers: 1. kitap okuyan adam 2. izlediğim film 3. Ayşe’nin aldığı ev 4. kaldığımız otel 5. yarın gelecek misafirler 6. söyleyeceğin şey 7. sebze yemeyen çocuk 8. doğdukları köy

Next steps

The same -dik and -ecek forms also make “that”-clauses (geldiğini biliyorum — I know that he came); continue with noun clauses. Paste any long participle into the suffix deconstructor to see its parts.