Turkish Reported Past: -mış, -miş, -muş, -müş
How the Turkish reported past works — the four-way vowel harmony that picks -mış, -miş, -muş or -müş, the pronominal person endings, its hearsay, inference and surprise readings, and how it differs from the witnessed -di past.
Ekle ·
The reported past marks an event the speaker did not witness — something heard, inferred, or discovered after the fact — rather than seen directly.
What the reported past does
Turkish has two past tenses, and choosing between them is a claim about how you know. This one is the reported past: it says the speaker did not see the event happen and instead learned of it some other way. gelmiş is "he came, they tell me", where the witnessed geldi would be "he came, I was there".
It attaches straight to the verb stem and takes four shapes — -mış, -miş, -muş, -müş — all chosen by vowel harmony, and the opening m stays the same in every one.
Four-way vowel harmony
The suffix vowel copies the last vowel of the stem, and it uses the four-way pattern, so there are four vowels to choose from. The m in front is fixed in all four, which means there is no consonant change to learn on top of the vowel.
| Last vowel | Suffix | Example form |
|---|---|---|
| a · ı | -mış | yağmış |
| e · i | -miş | gelmiş |
| o · u | -muş | olmuş |
| ö · ü | -müş | görmüş |
The vowel has to match the stem's on both counts, front against back and rounded against flat. gelmek has front e, so the ending is -miş and the word is gelmiş, not the back-voweled gelmış. olmak has rounded o, so it is -muş: olmuş, not olmış. görmek has front rounded ö, so it is -müş: görmüş, not görmiş.
The person endings
Person is marked after the tense suffix, and this tense takes the pronominal endings — the copular set, the same "am / are / is" pieces that ride on non-verbs. First person singular is gelmişim, and the full set runs as follows.
- gelmişim — apparently I have come
- gelmişsin — apparently you have come
- gelmiş — apparently he, she or it has come
- gelmişiz — apparently we have come
- gelmişsiniz — apparently you (plural or formal) have come
- gelmişler — apparently they have come
Worked examples
Each of these reports an event the speaker did not witness first-hand. Read every one as knowledge that reached the speaker some indirect way — by report, by inference, or by noticing the result.
| Turkish | Parts | English |
|---|---|---|
| gelmiş | gel + miş | he came, they say |
| görmüş | gör + müş | he has seen it, apparently |
| uyumuş | uyu + muş | he must have slept |
| yağmış | yağ + mış | it rained (I can see it did) |
| olmuş | ol + muş | it is ready / it has ripened |
Choosing this past over the witnessed one
The choice between this tense and the witnessed geldi is not about when — both are past. It is about the source of the knowledge. geldi says "he came, and I saw it happen"; gelmiş says "he came, and I did not — I heard it, worked it out, or found the traces". Pick the wrong one and you make a claim you did not mean.
- geldi — "he came", and I witnessed it: the witnessed past.
- gelmiş — "he came", and I did not: the reported past.
Reporting at second hand
The first job of the reported past is plain hearsay — passing on what you were told. gelmiş is "he came, they say", and gitmiş is "he has gone, or so I hear". You are not vouching for the event; you are reporting it at second hand, and the tense is what marks the distance.
Drawing an inference
It also marks an inference — a conclusion drawn from evidence rather than from watching the event itself. The light is off and the shoes are by the door, so you say uyumuş, "he must have slept". The suffix reports the finding, not the falling asleep, which no one saw.
Surprise and result
A fresh discovery takes the same suffix. Step outside to a wet street and you say yağmış — "oh, it rained!" — the yağmur having fallen while you were not looking. The reported past carries this jolt of noticing something only after it is done.
The tense also reads as a result that still stands: olmuş is "it is ready" or "it has ripened", where the ripening is over and its result is here now. This perfect-like sense sits close to the evidential one, since a result is itself something you observe rather than watch come about.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the Turkish -miş suffix mean?
- It marks the reported, or non-witnessed, past: the event happened, and the speaker knows of it indirectly — by hearsay, by inference, or by noticing it afterwards. gelmiş is "he came, they say", where the witnessed geldi would claim you saw it.
- What is the difference between the -miş past and the -di past?
- They differ in how the speaker knows. The geldi past claims first-hand knowledge — you saw it or did it. The gelmiş past reports something heard, inferred, or noticed after the fact. Turkish makes you choose, so the wrong one states a claim you did not intend.
- Why is the reported past used for surprise?
- Because a fresh discovery is knowledge that arrived after the event, not during it. Stepping out to a wet street you say yağmış, "oh, it rained!" — you did not see the rain fall, only its result, so the non-witnessed past is the natural fit.
- Why does the reported past have four forms?
- Four-way vowel harmony. The suffix vowel copies the last vowel of the stem, giving -mış, -miş, -muş or -müş; the m never changes, so there is no consonant variation on top. yağmış, gelmiş, olmuş and görmüş show the four in turn.