Now we're going to talk about compound nouns in Turkish
A compound noun is just two nouns
which are grammatically linked to form a single phrase or unit of meaning like, "plane ticket" or
"Kitchen door." Let's look at how we form them in Turkish. It's really very simple
so we'll start with "plane ticket." Start with the Turkish word for plane, "uçak"
And we leave it alone. We don't have to add any endings to "uçak"
Now we move on to the second half of our of
Compound noun. "Uçak...bilet": Turkish word for ticket
"Uçak...bilet". We want to say...these two words right now are not connected
we want to connect them to form a compound noun: plane ticket. So how are we going to do that?
We're simply going to add the third person singular possessive suffix
To the end of the second half of the compound, so the second word in the compound
"Uçak bilet..i"
According to the rules of four-way vowel harmony, so "Uçak bileti": plane ticket. Let's look at another example
"Kitchen door." I'll start with the Turkish word for kitchen, "mutfak"
"Mutfak" okay, we want to say "kitchen door." I'm gonna leave "mutfak" alone
No additional endings required and add the word for door, "kapı"
so "mutfak kapı," two separate words
We want to unite them into a compound by adding the third person singular possessive suffix
Just like we did here. Vowel harmony tells us it should be "ı"
"kapı"
we need to remember our
"s" to buffer between these two vowels because two vowels
don't like to be next to each other in Turkish so "mutfak kapısı": kitchen door
You can make compound nouns in Turkish with proper nouns as well
So for example if we want to say "Ankara University" which is a compound noun
Start with "Ankara"
and then the Turkish word for "üniversite"
and
Just as we did with "mutfak kapısı" we're going to add the third person singular
possessive suffix in this case "-si" according to the rules of four-way vowel harmony, so "Ankara University"
"Ankara Ünıversitesi"
Now so far we've only been combining two nouns into compound nouns
You can actually keep going, so let's look at an example of three nouns in Turkish combined into a compound
"birthday cake" in Turkish, birthday is written in two words as a compound noun so first the word for birth, "doğum"
and the word for day, "gün"
We want to make a compound
So we're going to add the singular third person possessive suffix according to the rules of vowel harmony, "gün" so "günü"
"Doğum günü": birthday
but we want to keep going. We want to say "birthday" actually we're going to say "birthday present," so
"Doğum günü" then we need the word for present, "hediye"
Okay
Because we're forming a compound noun "hediye" needs its own
third-person singular possessive suffix, just like "bileti" and "kapısı" and "günü" got so "doğum günü hediyesi"
"Birthday present" all one compound, three nouns, all linked
Now if you want to
put a
compound in the possessive, so for example if you want to say not just
"kitchen door": mutfak kapısı, but "my kitchen door"
You have to remember that Turkish does not allow you to attach
two possessive suffixes to a single word, so we can't take "mutfak kapısı" and then just stick another
possessive suffix on the end of it. We're going to do this, so let's say we want to say "my kitchen door"
"Mutfak": kitchen
"kapı," the same
But instead of adding the third person singular because we want to say "my kitchen door"
we're going to add the first person singular for my
According to the rules of vowel harmony - "mutfak kapım"
Okay, "my kitchen door"
Now you may be wondering, what if we want to
Say "his or her" and then a compound noun because we're already using
The third person singular possessive suffix, the same suffix
We'd be using to say "his or her"
Let's look with plane ticket: "uçak bileti"
If you want to say
"her plane ticket"
"Uçak": plane..."bilet"
"Uçak bilet," well we need the third person singular possessive suffix, "-i"
According to the rules of vowel harmony "uçak bileti" - It's exactly the same, you do not need an additional
possessive suffix, so "uçak bileti" can mean
"Plane ticket" or "his, her or it's plane ticket"
What if you want to make it clear that this is "his or her plane ticket," not just "a plane ticket"
You always have the option of adding
"onun"
at the beginning the
genitive
pronoun "his or her or it's." "His or her or its plane ticket," and then you don't have any ambiguity