Compound verbs are phrases combined by two or more words to create a different meaning from their own to meet or describe any action. Complex verbs are a subcategory of compound verbs and show the tense and style properties of the verb. Complex verbs cover priority verbs, habit verbs, intention verbs, and continuum verbs. Since the participle in the compound verb takes place before the declaration of the auxiliary verb “ol- “, the complex verb is called the priority verb. Priority verbs are formed with -mIş bulun- affixation and bear various meanings. In the relevant literature, studies have shown that the sentences containing the structure of -mIş bulun- mostly carry diverse meanings such as regret, formality, and courtesy. However, the studies on the further meanings of -mIş bulun- and how the modality view of these sentences is demonstrated are not much in quantity. The primary purpose of this research is to contribute to the field with further research on the aforementioned verbs and to determine whether the -mIş bulun- structure marks the epistemic modality and to find out its sub-meanings, also to explain the role of other modality markers in the sentence excepts for the -mIş bulun- structure in determining the modality meaning. For this purpose, the novels of Cevat Şakir Kabağaçlı (Halikarnas Balıkçısı) were chosen as the object of study; thus, purposive sampling was used in this study, and eleven sentences containing the -mIş bulun- structure and marked in the epistemic modality were analyzed. The analysis revealed that six sentences were marked in the speculative modality, two sentences were used in the deductive modality and three sentences connoted the assumptive modality. It has been concluded that the -mIş bulun- structure is the modality marker that directly determines the modal meaning in two sentences while other modality markers such as modal adverbs, modal words, and the context mark modal meanings in other sentences. In light of these findings, this study will add to further linguistic modality studies.

Compound verb, complex verb, priority verb, modality, -mIş bulun- structure.