Turkish -dikçe Converb: As Long As, The More
The Turkish converb -DIkçA — "as long as / the more / each time" — how it builds a clause of proportion or of repeated coincidence, the four-way harmony that spans -dıkça to -dükçe, the d that hardens to t after a voiceless stem in baktıkça, why the k stays hard in gördükçe, and how the subject is read off the main clause.
Ekle ·
This converb turns a verb into a clause of proportion — "the more ..., the more ..." — or of extent, "as long as" or "each time" something holds.
What this converb does
Turkish folds "the more ..., the more ..." into a single word. Add the ending to a verb stem and it names the condition under which the main clause holds: görmek "to see" gives gördükçe, and gördükçe özlüyorum is "the more I see them, the more I miss them".
The same ending carries a second reading of extent in time — "as long as" or "each time". yaşadıkça öğreniriz is "as long as we live, we learn". Either way the main clause supplies the tense and the mood; the converb states only the condition, and takes no tense of its own.
Vowel harmony picks the ending
The ending harmonises on both of its vowels. The first vowel matches the stem's last vowel through all four of its shapes, and the second rides along in step — e after a front stem, a after a back one. So a front verb lands on -dikçe or -dükçe and a back verb on -dıkça or -dukça, with dotless ı counting as back.
| Last vowel | After a voiced sound | After a voiceless sound |
|---|---|---|
| a · ı | -dıkça | -tıkça |
| e · i | -dikçe | -tikçe |
| o · u | -dukça | -tukça |
| ö · ü | -dükçe | -tükçe |
Down the middle of every shape the k and the ç hold steady; only the two vowels and the opening consonant move. The grid's third column shows that opening consonant going from d to t, which the next point takes up.
The d hardens to t
The ending opens with d after a vowel or a voiced consonant, and that d hardens to t after a voiceless one. The voiceless consonants are p ç t k f h s ş: a stem ending in any of them takes the t-forms. bakmak "to look" gives baktıkça, and içmek "to drink" gives içtikçe — the same hardening the past tense already shows.
Four worked forms
Read each as the frame around a main clause — "as", "the more", or "as long as" the action goes on.
| Turkish | Parts | English |
|---|---|---|
| gördükçe | gör + dük + çe | as one sees, the more one sees |
| yaşadıkça | yaşa + dık + ça | as long as one lives |
| istedikçe | iste + dik + çe | each time one wants, as long as one wants |
| okudukça | oku + duk + ça | the more one reads |
Two forms with the hardened t
These two stems end in a voiceless consonant, so the ending opens with t rather than d.
| Turkish | Parts | English |
|---|---|---|
| baktıkça | bak + tık + ça | the more one looks |
| içtikçe | iç + tik + çe | the more one drinks |
The k stays hard
The k of this ending never softens. The ending opens with a consonant, so nothing pulls the k of the base out of shape, and gördükçe keeps it hard. Set that against the very same base under a vowel-initial ending: the participle plus a possessive gives gördüğüm, "the one I saw", where the k does soften. One stem, two results — the k stays hard when a consonant follows and softens when a vowel does.
The more, the more
One reading is proportion — as one thing grows, so does another, the English "the more ..., the more ...". gördükçe özlüyorum pairs görmek with özlemek: "the more I see them, the more I miss them", where özlüyorum carries the present tense the converb itself never marks.
| Turkish | Parts | English |
|---|---|---|
| gördükçe | gör + dük + çe | the more one sees |
As long as it lasts
A second reading is extent in time — "as long as" something holds. yaşadıkça öğreniriz is "as long as we live, we learn": yaşamak sets the span and the main verb öğreniriz states what fills it. The converb marks the stretch and hands the tense to the main clause.
| Turkish | Parts | English |
|---|---|---|
| yaşadıkça | yaşa + dık + ça | as long as one lives |
Each time, and who is meant
The same ending also reads as repeated coincidence — "each time" or "whenever". istemek "to want" gives istedikçe, "each time one wants", "as long as one keeps wanting".
The converb carries no person ending of its own, so yaşadıkça can be "as long as I live", "as long as we live", or "as long as they live". The subject is read off the main clause, or named on its own in the bare nominative — which is what sen istedikçe, "as long as you want", spells out by putting sen in front.
| Turkish | Parts | English |
|---|---|---|
| istedikçe | iste + dik + çe | each time one wants, as long as one wants |
Frequently asked questions
- What does the -dikçe ending mean?
- It builds a converb with two readings. One is proportion — "the more ..., the more ...", as in gördükçe özlüyorum, "the more I see them, the more I miss them". The other is extent or repetition — "as long as" or "each time", as in yaşadıkça öğreniriz, "as long as we live, we learn". The main clause carries the tense; the converb only names the condition.
- When does the ending start with t instead of d?
- After a stem that ends in a voiceless consonant — one of the set p ç t k f h s ş. bakmak gives baktıkça and içmek gives içtikçe, with the d hardened to t. After a vowel or a voiced consonant the d stays, as in gördükçe.
- Who is the subject of a -dikçe clause?
- The converb takes no person ending, so yaşadıkça can mean "as long as I live", "as long as we live", or "as long as they live". The subject is read off the main clause, or named separately in the bare nominative: sen istedikçe, "as long as you want", puts sen in front to do exactly that.
- How is -dikçe different from the converb that means 'while'?
- The "while" converb frames one action as the background to another at a single moment. This one measures proportion or extent instead: gördükçe is "the more one sees", yaşadıkça "as long as one lives". One sets a scene; the other tracks how two things rise or last together.