Turkish/Cases

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[edit] Cases

Cases are familiar to some languages such as German. But if your native tongue is English, it may be difficult to learn cases immediately, but if you use Turkish, you will understand its importance. In Turkish, prepositions like "to","from","at","in" etc. do not exist. Instead, we use cases. There are six cases (nominative, genitive, dative, locative, accusative and ablative case). The cases function like the English prepositions (to, at, from). Certain verbs require the subject or object to be in the specific case.

The suffixes adapt to the last vowel in the word according to the vowel harmony rule (front or back vowel)

Front vowels are e, i, ö, ü ==> the suffixes are:

after e, i:
Nominative: -
Genitive: -(n)in
Dative: -(y)e
Accusative: -(y)i
Locative: -de, -te
Ablative: -den, -ten

after ö, ü:
Nominative: -
Genitive: -(n)ün
Dative: -(y)e
Accusative: -(y)i
Locative: -de, -te
Ablative: -den, -ten

Back vowels are a, ı, o, u ==> the suffixes are:

after a, ı:
Nominative: -
Genitive: -(n)ın
Dative: -(y)a
Accusative: -(y)ı
Locative: -da, -ta
Ablative: -dan, -tan

after o, u:
Nominative: -
Genitive: -(n)un
Dative: -(y)a
Accusative: -(y)u
Locative: -da, -ta
Ablative: -dan, -tan

Examples:

otel (hotel)
otelin (of the hotel)
otele (to the hotel) => Otele gidiyorum. (I am going to the hotel)
oteli (the hotel) => Oteli biliyorum. (I know the hotel)
otelde (at the hotel) => Otelde kaldım. (I stayed at the hotel)
otelden (from the hotel) => Otelden plaja gittim. (I went from the hotel to the beach)

bahçe (garden)
bahçenin (of the garden) => bahçenin arkasında (behind the garden)
bahçeye (to the garden) => Bahçeye gittik. (We went to the garden)
bahçeyi (the garden) => Bahçeyi görmedim. (I haven't seen the garden.)
bahçede (in the garden) => Bahçede oturdum. (I was in the garden.)
bahçeden (from the garden) => Bahçeden geliyoruz. (We are coming from the garden.)

After nouns ending in f, p, ç, ş, h, s, t, k the locative and ablative suffixes containing the t-sound (-ta, -tan, -te, -ten) are used.

kitap (book)
kitabın (of the book). This noun also changes the p to b.
kitaba (to the book)
kitabı (the book)
kitapta (in the book)
kitaptan (from the book)

iş (work)
işin (of the work)
işe (to the work) => İşe gidiyorum. (I am going to work.)
işi (the work)
işte (at the work)
işten (from the work) => İşten eve gittim. (I went from the office home.)

More examples

Türkiye'nin başkenti Ankara'dır. (The capital of Turkey is Ankara.)
İstanbul'a gidiyorum. (I am going to Istanbul.)
Kitabı okudum. (I have read the (that specific) book.)
Türkiye'deydim (I was in Turkey. = lit. Turkey-in-was-I)..)
İstanbul'dan Ankara'ya trenle gidiyoruz. = (We are going from Istanbul to Ankara by train)

Suffixes attached to the names (people, cities, countries) are precedeed by an ' .
Ali => Ali'ye (to Ali, male name)
Tarkan => Tarkan'a (to Tarkan, male name)
Ayşe => Ayşe'ye (to Ayşe, girl name)
Sibel => Sibel'e (to Sibel, girl name)

The dative (-a, -e) and accusative (ı, i, u, ü) case suffixes require a buffer consonant y in words ending with a vowel and become (-ya, -ye) and (yı, yi, yu, yü) respectively as in:
Ankara'ya (to Ankara); I am going to Ankara => Ankara'ya gidiyorum.
Türkiye'ye (to Turkey); I am going to Turkey => Türkiye'ye gidiyorum.
halıyı (the carpet); I am buying the carpet. => Halıyı alıyorum.

The genitive case requires an additional n in words ending with a vowel as in:
Ayşe'nin (Ayşe's) => Ayşe'nin babası (Ayşe's father)
Ali'nin (Ali's) => Ali'nin annesi (Ali's mother)
Atilla'nın (Atilla's) => Atilla'nın abisi (Atilla's [elder] brother)
Cansu'nun (Cansu's) => Cansu'nun ninesi (Cansu's grandmother)
Hüsnü'nün (Hüsnü's) => Hüsnü'nün evi (Hüsnü's house)

The buffer consonants serve to pronunce the words easier.