Turkish Indefinite Pronouns: biri, herkes, hiçbiri
How Turkish indefinite pronouns and determiners work — how biri, herkes and kimse take case endings, the -n- and -y- buffers, the determiners her, bazı, bütün, and the negative concord that pairs hiç kimse with a negated verb.
Ekle ·
Indefinite pronouns name someone or something without saying exactly who or which, and they take the same case endings as ordinary nouns.
What indefinite pronouns are
Turkish has a small family of words for unspecified people and things: biri is "someone", herkes is "everyone", kimse is "anyone", and hiçbiri is "none of them". Each stands in for a noun without pointing at any particular one.
Because they behave like nouns, they carry the ordinary case endings: biri becomes birine, "to someone", and birini, "someone" as an object. The whole topic comes down to two things — which words the family holds, and how the endings attach to each of them.
How the endings attach
How the ending joins on depends on the last sound of the base. biri carries a fused possessive -i and slips a buffer -n- in first, giving birine and birini. herkes ends in a consonant, so the ending lands straight on it: herkese, herkesi. kimse ends in a vowel and takes a buffer -y-: kimseye, kimseyi.
| Pronoun | Dative | Accusative |
|---|---|---|
| biri | birine | birini |
| herkes | herkese | herkesi |
| kimse | kimseye | kimseyi |
| hiçbir şey | hiçbir şeye | hiçbir şeyi |
A compound points its ending at the noun on the end. hiçbir şey, "nothing", puts the accusative on that final noun and becomes hiçbir şeyi.
Worked forms
Each of these is one of the family carrying a case ending — read the base, the buffer and the ending together.
| Turkish | Parts | English |
|---|---|---|
| biri | bir + i | someone / one of them |
| birine | bir + i + n + e | to someone |
| hiçbiri | hiçbir + i | none of them |
| hiçbir şeyi | hiçbir + şey + i | nothing (as the object) |
| herkese | herkes + e | to everyone |
| bazıları | bazı + lar + ı | some of them |
The double negative
A whole set of these words leans on a negated verb. Where English lets the pronoun alone carry the "no", Turkish negates the verb as well, so the sentence reads almost as "no one didn't come": hiç kimse gelmedi is "no one came". The negation lives on the verb, and the pronoun agrees with it.
- kimse gelmedi — "nobody came".
- hiç kimse gelmedi — "no one came".
- hiçbir şey görmedim — "I saw nothing".
- hiçbiri gelmedi — "none of them came".
- kimseyi görmedim — "I saw no one".
Swap the verb back to positive and the sentence falls apart: hiç kimse geldi, hiçbir şey gördüm and hiçbiri geldi are all ungrammatical. One of these words in the subject forces the negation onto the verb.
Someone and everyone
For a plain positive statement Turkish reaches for biri, "someone", and herkes, "everyone" — the affirmative side of the family. biri singles out one unnamed person, and it also turns up as the fuller birisi, which means the same. herkes gathers the whole group: herkes geldi is "everyone came" and herkes burada is "everyone is here".
| Turkish | Parts | English |
|---|---|---|
| biri | bir + i | someone |
| herkese | herkes + e | to everyone |
Words that stand before a noun
A second set sits in front of a noun instead of standing on its own. her means "every" and pairs with a singular noun: her gün is "every day". bazı is "some": bazı insanlar is "some people". bütün and tüm both mean "all" or "the whole": bütün gün is "all day" and tüm dünya is "the whole world".
Most of these have a matching pronoun built with a possessive, and that pronoun stands alone: bazıları, "some of them", birçoğu, "many of them", hiçbiri, "none of them". The determiner needs a noun behind it while the pronoun does not — hiçbir waits for a noun, and hiçbiri is already complete.
Everyone counts as singular
Although herkes means "everyone", Turkish counts it as grammatically singular, so it governs a singular verb: herkes geldi is "everyone came", with the verb in the singular. Its own endings are singular too, landing straight on the consonant-final base — herkese, "to everyone", and herkesi, "everyone" as an object.
| Turkish | Parts | English |
|---|---|---|
| herkese | herkes + e | to everyone |
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between biri and birisi?
- biri and birisi both mean "someone", and in everyday speech they are interchangeable. biri is the shorter form and birisi the fuller one, and each takes the same case endings — the dative of either is birine, "to someone".
- Why does hiç kimse gelmedi look like a double negative?
- Because Turkish uses negative concord: a negative pronoun and a negated verb travel together. hiç kimse gelmedi is "no one came", built almost as "no one didn't come". The positive hiç kimse geldi is not grammatical — the verb has to carry the negation.
- Do indefinite pronouns take case endings the way nouns do?
- Yes, and the buffer depends on the base. biri slips in a -n- and gives birine and birini; herkes ends in a consonant and gives herkese and herkesi; kimse ends in a vowel and gives kimseye and kimseyi. The common slip is biriye for the dative of biri, where the right form is birine.
- her, bütün and tüm all seem to mean "all" — which do I use?
- her means "every" and takes a singular noun: her gün is "every day", counted one by one. bütün and tüm mean "all" or "the whole" and take the noun as a single block: bütün gün is "all day long" and tüm dünya is "the whole world".