Some Turkish verbs, besides their basic function, have an auxiliary function, forming compound verbs with nominal forms. This function is known not only in modern Turkish but also in Ottoman-Turkish. The purpose of this paper is to present the verbs etmek, olmak, eylemek, kılmak as examples of this function.
The lexical material excerpted from Giovanni Molino’s seventeenth-century Italian-Turkish Dictionary constitutes the basis for the analysis. When analysing the material we can ascertain that in Ottoman-Turkish the verb etmek especially was frequently involved in the process of forming compound verbs, olmak rather less so, with eylemek and kılmak rarely performing this function. Indeed, the verbs etmek and olmak can still be observed to perform this function in modern Turkish, however, not on the same scale as in Ottoman-Turkish.

Some Turkish verbs, besides their basic function, have an auxiliary function, forming compound verbs with nominal forms. This function is known not only in modern Turkish but also in Ottoman-Turkish. The purpose of this paper is to present the verbs etmek, olmak, eylemek, kılmak as examples of this function.
The lexical material excerpted from Giovanni Molino’s seventeenth-century Italian-Turkish Dictionary constitutes the basis for the analysis. When analysing the material we can ascertain that in Ottoman-Turkish the verb etmek especially was frequently involved in the process of forming compound verbs, olmak rather less so, with eylemek and kılmak rarely performing this function. Indeed, the verbs etmek and olmak can still be observed to perform this function in modern Turkish, however, not on the same scale as in Ottoman-Turkish.