Bastrabilir

Bastrabilir is a term that appears chiefly as a nonstandard or misspelled variant of a Turkish verb form. It is not listed as a separate lemma in authoritative Turkish dictionaries, and in formal writing the standard form bastırabilir is used. The spelling bastrabilir may occur in informal text, transcription, or contexts where Turkish diacritic marks (such as the dotless i) are omitted.

Etymology and morphology: The underlying verb is bastırmak, which can mean to press down or to coerce. In Turkish, the potential mood is expressed with the suffix -abilir/-ebilir. The combined form bastır-(m)ak + -abilir yields bastırabilir, meaning roughly “can press down” or “could coerce,” depending on context. A commonly seen nonstandard variant is bastrabilir, which represents a transliteration or orthographic simplification that drops the diacritic distinctions present in standard Turkish.

Usage and context: In linguistic discussions, bastrabilir is sometimes used as an illustrative example to show how a causative stem interacts with the potential suffix. In everyday Turkish, however, the correct and widely accepted spelling is bastırabilir. Beyond Turkish, bastrabilir may appear in discussions of orthography, transliteration, or typographic limitations, where nonstandard spellings reflect keyboard or encoding constraints rather than a distinct grammatical form.

See also: Turkish grammar, causative verbs, potential mood, bastırmak.