Now we're going to talk about the genitive case in Turkish
The genitive case is a set of endings that are the equivalent of the English phrase "of" or "of the"
and you add them directly to a Turkish noun or pronoun. Let's look at an example
Let's take the Turkish word for sibling: "kardeş"
Let's say you want to say "of the sibling." You're going to choose the version of the genitive case ending that
corresponds best with "kardeş," according to the rules of four-way vowel harmony. Let's look at our four choices
"-in, -ın, -un and -ün"
The rules of four-way vowel harmony tell us that we are going to choose "-in" for "kardeş"
so "of the sibling": kardeşin
What happens if the word you want to attach the genitive case ending to ends with a vowel?
Let's take a look Turkish word for cat: "kedi"
If we want to say "of the cat" well vowel harmony tells us "i"
going to choose this version of the genitive case ending "-in" "kedi...in"
But Turkish does not like to have two vowels next to each other therefore
we have to add what's called a buffer consonant. For the genitive case
this is going to be an "n". So instead of "kedi...in" we're going to say "kedinin":
of the cat
Let's look at some more examples
Turkish word for friend is "arkadaş"
If we want to say "of the friend"
we're going to choose the version of the genitive case ending that corresponds best with "arkadaş" according to the rules of four-way vowel harmony
so "arkadaşın"
Another example that ends in a vowel, let's say we want to say "of the car," the Turkish word for car is "araba"
vowel harmony tells us that we should choose this version of the genitive case ending "-ın" so
"Araba...ın"
But this ends in a vowel, so we'll need the buffer "n"
"Arabanın": of the car
Some more examples, let's say we want to say "of the school." The Turkish word for school is "okul"
According to the rules of four-way vowel harmony
We're going to choose "-un" as our version of the genitive case so "okulun": of the school
If we want to say "of the radio" the Turkish word for radio is "radyo"
"Radyo"
We're going to need our buffer "n" again so "radyonun": of the radio
Another example, let's say we want to say "of the hairdresser," the Turkish word for hairdresser is "kuaför"
We're going to choose the version of the genitive case ending that corresponds best with a final vowel in "kuaför," so "-ün"
"Kuaförün": of the hairdresser
Finally if we want to say "of the sky" we can start with the Turkish word for sky, "gökyüzü"
and
again, we're going to need to add the buffer "n" sound so
that we buffer this "ü" from the "ü" in our ending so "gökyüzünü"
One final note
if you're adding the genitive case
to a proper noun, like the name of a person or the name of the city you're going to need to use an
apostrophe to separate the noun from the genitive case ending, so for example if you want to say
"of Istanbul, of the city of Istanbul" start with the word for Istanbul: "Istanbul"
According to vowel harmony we're going to choose "-un" as our genitive case ending, "Istanbulun"
But because "Istanbul" is a proper noun we're going to add an apostrophe here, so "Istanbul'un": of the city of Istanbul