Possession in Turkish is marked with the attachment of the genitive marker to the possessor and the possessive marker -(s)I to the possessed:
Possessor+ (n)In Possessed + (s)I Here are some examples:
Ahmet’in babası ‘Ahmet’s father’
bahc¸enin kapısı ‘the garden’s door’
Om ¨ur’ ¨un arabası ‘ ¨¨ Om ¨ur’s car’
Genitive and possessive
Here is the full paradigm:
Benim kek-im, portakal-ım, s ¨ut- ¨um, gurur-um, oda-m Senin kek-in, portakal-ın, s ¨ut- ¨un, gurur-un, oda-n Onun kek-i, portakal-ı, s ¨ut- ¨u, gurur-u, oda-sı
Bizim kek-imiz, portakal-ımız, s ¨ut- ¨um ¨uz, gurur-umuz, oda-mız Sizin kek-iniz, portakal-ınız, s ¨ut- ¨un ¨uz, gurur-unuz, oda-nız Onların kek-leri, portakal-ları, s ¨ut-leri, gurur-ları, oda-ları
Remember, when a vowel-initial suffix is attached to a word that ends in p, t, ¸c, or k, it undergoes voicing and p becomes b, t becomes d, ¸c becomes c, and k becomes either ˘g or g. SeeChapter 2for a detailed account of it. In the case of the possessive suffixing, these kinds of sound changes are observed very frequently. Remember also that such changes are not very predictable. Here are some examples of unpredictability:
sap becomes sapı but kitap becomes kitabı
at becomes atı, fiyat becomes fiyatı, yurt becomes yurdu sac¸ remains as sac¸ı but a˘gac¸ becomes a˘gacı
kek is pronounced as keki but renk becomes rengi and k¨opek becomes k¨ope ˘gi
Another phonological change is observed in the high vowels. High vowels that appear in the last syllable of a word get deleted when a vowel-initial suffix is attached to the word.
For example, burun ‘nose’ becomes burnu ‘his nose’ (not burunu). Just as is the case with the voicing examples above, there are exceptions to this rule, as we discussed inChapter 2. Here are some more examples: ˙Isim ‘name’ becomes ismi not isimi, s¸ehir ‘city’ becomes s¸ehri not s¸ehiri, o˘gul ‘son’ becomes o˘glu not o˘gulu, resim ‘picture’ becomes resmi not resimi, karın
‘abdomen’ becomes karnı not karını, and so on.
Note that there are just a few exceptions to the genitive case marker and these are observed in the word ‘water’ and the question word ne ‘what’:
suyun rengi ‘the color of water’ (note that it is not sunun) neyin rengi ‘the color of what’ (note that it is not nenin)
su-yum ‘my water’ ne-yim ‘my what’
su-yun ‘your (sing.) water’ ne-yin ‘your (sing.) what’
su-yu ‘his/her/its water’ ne-yi (or ne-si) ‘his/her/its what’
su-yumuz ‘our water’ ne-yimiz ‘our what’
su-yunuz ‘your (plural) water’ ne-yiniz ‘your (plural) what’
su-ları ‘their water’ ne-leri ‘their what’
When the possessor is a pronoun or when it can be guessed due to context, it may be dropped. That is why sometimes the possessor noun and pronoun are shown in parenthesis throughout the chapter. Just like the pronoun subjects of sentences, the possessor pronouns are expressed when we would like to stress them.
Benim arabam ‘my car, with emphasis on my’
Arabam ‘my car’
In the first example below, the possessor ‘my’ is expressed because it needs to be emphasized and contrasted with the possessor ‘my father’s.’ In the second example, the speaker does not need to say benim ‘my’ because there is no alternative possessor. If the speaker says benim arabamı rather than arabamı alone, it sounds as if there is another, an alternative car, and the speaker parked his car, not the other one. So it is not appropriate to use the possessed noun in the second context below.
D ¨un aks¸am babamın arabasıyla kaza yaptım. Babamın arabası tamircide. Benim arabam de˘gil.
‘I had an accident withmy father’s car yesterday evening. My father’s car is at the mechanics, not my car.’
Arabamı otoparka parkettim.
‘I parked my car at the parking lot.’
Exercise 3 Form genitive constructions with the pair of nouns given below.
Ornek: C¨ ¸ i˘gdem hala C¸ i˘gdem’in halası
1. Emel ev
2. kitap ikinci baskı
3. Restoran ad
4. ¨o˘grenci not
5. d¨onem bas¸
6. ¨o˘gretmen arkadas¸
7. Bakan bey sekreter 8. S¸ehir resim 9. siz kapıcı 10. ˙Istanbul m ¨uzeler
11. Van kediler 21. Barıs¸ Manc¸o hayat 22. biz foto˘graf 23. Nuran cep telefon
Exercise 4 Fill in the blanks in the conversation below. Form possessive compounds with the words between brackets and use them to complete the conversations. Be careful about the case markers.
1. A: Ne is¸ yapıyorsunuz?
B: Ben (matematik – ¨o˘gretmen).
2. A: Nerede c¸alıs¸ıyorsunuz?
B: Ben (Koc¸ – Lise) c¸alıs¸ıyorum.
Genitive and possessive
3. A: Nerede oturuyorsunuz?
B: Bes¸iktas¸’ta (Barbaros – Bulvarı) oturuyorum.
4. A: Pazar g ¨unleri genellikle ne yapıyorsunuz?
B: Evde dinleniyorum. Bazen (futbol – mac¸) gidiyorum.
Exercise 5 Fill in the blanks with genitive, possessive and appropriate case markers.
1. Bu kitapları hangi ¨universite k ¨ut¨uphane aldın?
2. Bu Edirneli arkadas¸ araba mı?
3. Siz Adana’da ev var mı?
4. Selim baba gec¸en ay ac¸ık kalp ameliyatı olmus¸.
5. Yasemin hanım ders kitabı ¨o˘grenciler c¸ok be˘genmis¸.
6. Bu aks¸am s¸irket misafir bulus¸aca˘gım.
7. Siz ¨universite kapalı y ¨uzme havuzu var mı?
8. Murat bey sekreter aradık, randevu aldık.
9. Toplantı Kemal bey oda olacak.
10. C¸ ocuklar kahvaltı kim hazırlayacak?
11. Hakan yalanlar artık hic¸kimse inanmıyor.
12. Zeynep amca c¸ok ¨unl ¨u bir c¸ocuk doktoru.
5.3 Possessive + var/yok ‘I have . . . ’
Use of the existential is another way of expressing possession. To be able to say ‘I have a car’ we use the possessive structure and add the existential word var (or yok in the negative).
Here is the existential-possessive structure with var and yok:
Araba var ‘There is a car.’
Araba-m var ‘I have a car.’ (literally, ‘there is my car’) Here are some more examples.
(Benim) arabam var. (my car exists) ‘I have a car.’
(Senin) araban var mı? (your car exists question) ‘Do you have a car?’
(Sizin) arabanız var mı? (your-plural car exists question) ‘Do you have a car?’
(Benim) kedim yok. (my cat doesn’t exist) ‘I don’t have a cat.’
Exercise 6 Translate the sentences into Turkish.
1. I have two cats.
2. Do you have children?
3. Alice has a lot of Turkish friends.
4. We do not have a math class on Monday.
5. Do you (plural) have a cell phone?
6. They do not have a train ticket.
7. My father has a very big summer house in Ayvalık.
8. Hasan Bey has a red car.
9. We don’t have time now.
10. Do you have a few minutes?