Sahiplik Eki ve Tamlamalar – Genitive Suffix and Linking Nouns
In English, we say Kate’s house. Here the ’s indicates possession. Whose house? Kate’s house.
In Turkish, we do this with the suffixes – ın, -in, -un, -ün. There must be a harmony between vowel sounds. So we say: Kate’in
If it were Serdar’s house, we would say Serdar’ın.
Kate – Kate’in, Serdar – Serdar’ın, Aykut – Aykut’un, Gül - Gül’ün
But there is more to say about this kind of linkage between nouns in Turkish as can be seen in the picture above. Study these examples:
Kate – Ev: Kate’in evi
Here the suffix –i in the word “evi” is the third person suffix. We don’t say Kate’in ev. We say Kate’in evi.
According to the vowel harmony rule in Turkish, the third person suffix can be –ı, -i, -u, –ü.
Serdar – bilgisayar (computer): Serdar’ın bilgisayarı Aykut – kardeş (sister or brother): Aykut’un kardeşi
Gül – okul (school): Gül’ün okulu Sinem – göz (eye): Sinem’in gözü
Note: We don’t use an apostrophe when adding the genitive suffix to common nouns.
Adam – bisiklet: adamın bisikleti Bisiklet – teker: bisikletin tekeri
In Turkish, we do this with the suffixes – ın, -in, -un, -ün. There must be a harmony between vowel sounds. So we say: Kate’in
If it were Serdar’s house, we would say Serdar’ın.
Kate – Kate’in, Serdar – Serdar’ın, Aykut – Aykut’un, Gül - Gül’ün
But there is more to say about this kind of linkage between nouns in Turkish as can be seen in the picture above. Study these examples:
Kate – Ev: Kate’in evi
Here the suffix –i in the word “evi” is the third person suffix. We don’t say Kate’in ev. We say Kate’in evi.
According to the vowel harmony rule in Turkish, the third person suffix can be –ı, -i, -u, –ü.
Serdar – bilgisayar (computer): Serdar’ın bilgisayarı Aykut – kardeş (sister or brother): Aykut’un kardeşi
Gül – okul (school): Gül’ün okulu Sinem – göz (eye): Sinem’in gözü
Note: We don’t use an apostrophe when adding the genitive suffix to common nouns.
Adam – bisiklet: adamın bisikleti Bisiklet – teker: bisikletin tekeri
Click here to see more about possessives and linking nouns
İşaretler - Common Signs
Renkler - Colours
Tekil / Çoğul - Singular / Plural
İsimleri –lar ve –ler ekleriyle çoğul yapıyoruz.
Adam – adamlar
Öğrenci – öğrenciler
Kitap – kitaplar
Çiçek - çiçekler
Adam – adamlar
Öğrenci – öğrenciler
Kitap – kitaplar
Çiçek - çiçekler
Vowel Harmony and Making Nouns Plural
Turkish seems to be all about adding suffixes to words and suffixes have different forms according to the principle of vowel harmony.
We said there are back vowels (a, ı, o,u) and there are front vowels (e, i, ö, ü). Back vowels must follow each other in a word, and so do the front vowels.
Today we’re going to practice making nouns plural. The plural suffix have two forms: -lar and –ler.
As you can see, the suffix –lar has a back vowel: a. So we need to add –lar to nouns which have back vowels. On the other hand, -ler has a front vowel: e. And we need to add it to nouns which have front vowels.
Look at these examples:
Kaz, kız, kol, kuş. These nouns have back vowels a, ı, o, u. That means, we will use –lar suffix to make them plural. So we have kazlar, kızlar, kollar, kuşlar.
And now look at these nouns: kek, kip, kök, kül. These nouns have front vowels and to maket hem plural we should use –ler suffix. So we have kekler, kipler, kökler, küller
Let’s try to make the following nouns plural.
ağaç, kedi, doktor, defter, odun, silgi, muz, üzüm, balık, erik, koltuk, gök
Of course, there are some words which don’t comply with the principle of vowel harmony. Some of them are foreign words like kitap, kalem, viraj et cetera and some of them are Turkish words which have changed in time like anne, elma and kardeş. When we add a suffix to a word, we always look at the last vowel of the word. So kitap-lar, kalem-ler, viraj-lar, anne-ler, elma-lar, kardeş-ler.
That’s all for today, in the next lesson, we are going to study some other suffixes and we will be looking at rounded and unrounded vowels.
Goodbye.
We said there are back vowels (a, ı, o,u) and there are front vowels (e, i, ö, ü). Back vowels must follow each other in a word, and so do the front vowels.
Today we’re going to practice making nouns plural. The plural suffix have two forms: -lar and –ler.
As you can see, the suffix –lar has a back vowel: a. So we need to add –lar to nouns which have back vowels. On the other hand, -ler has a front vowel: e. And we need to add it to nouns which have front vowels.
Look at these examples:
Kaz, kız, kol, kuş. These nouns have back vowels a, ı, o, u. That means, we will use –lar suffix to make them plural. So we have kazlar, kızlar, kollar, kuşlar.
And now look at these nouns: kek, kip, kök, kül. These nouns have front vowels and to maket hem plural we should use –ler suffix. So we have kekler, kipler, kökler, küller
Let’s try to make the following nouns plural.
ağaç, kedi, doktor, defter, odun, silgi, muz, üzüm, balık, erik, koltuk, gök
Of course, there are some words which don’t comply with the principle of vowel harmony. Some of them are foreign words like kitap, kalem, viraj et cetera and some of them are Turkish words which have changed in time like anne, elma and kardeş. When we add a suffix to a word, we always look at the last vowel of the word. So kitap-lar, kalem-ler, viraj-lar, anne-ler, elma-lar, kardeş-ler.
That’s all for today, in the next lesson, we are going to study some other suffixes and we will be looking at rounded and unrounded vowels.
Goodbye.
More about plurals and demonstratives. Click here.
Meyveler - Fruit
Click on the picture to see and hear more food and drink vocabulary
İsmin Halleri - Different cases of nouns
Ev. Bu bir ev. (This is a house.)
Evi temizle. (Clean the house.)
Eve git. (Go to the house.)
Evde otur. (Sit in the house.)
Evden çık. (Get out of the house.)
Araba. (The car.)
Arabayı temizle.* (Clean the car.)
Arabaya git.* (Go to the car.)
Arabada otur. (Sit in the car.)
Arabadan çık. (Get out of the car.)
*NOTE: When a word ending in a vowel takes the accusative (-ı, -i) and dative (-a, -e) suffixes, we put the buffer letter “y” between.
araba, arabayı, arabaya, arabada, arabadan
kedi, kediyi, kediye, kedide, kediden
Nominative or Accusative - What's the difference?
QUIZ TIME
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