One of the points of Turkish that can be confusing for a lot of learners (like me) is when to use the Turkish accusative marker. I am not a native, so I could not rely on my intuitive feeling of when to add the marker. For me, I need to memorize this set of rules for when to use the accusative marker.
What is the Turkish accusative marker?
It’s tricky to write the marker for Turkish affixes because of it’s vowel harmony. In the case of the Turkish accusative marker, there are 4 possible vowels and 1 possible consonant buffer, so there are 8 ways this marker manifests. Those are -i, -yi, -ı, -yı, -u, -yu, -ü, or -yü.
The key point of the accusative marker is that it is used for the object of transitive verbs. In English, we don’t use affixes to mark objects; we use word order. If you have learned a language like Latin, Russian, or Japanese, you have seen languages that add a special ending to nouns to show how they connect to the verb.
The problem is that not every Turkish direct object receives the accusative marker.
Bir kitap okuyorum.
= I am reading a book.
Here, kitap does not need the marker because it is used in a indefinite sense. Because “bir kitap” is translated as “a book,” it does not need a marker to become kitabı.
What exactly are the rules for when you SHOULD use the accusative marker?
Rule 1: definite
If you would translate the object into English with “the” or “this,” use an accusative marker.
Evde kitabı unttum.
= I forgot the book at home.
Bu ekmeği yiyeceğim.
= I will eat this bread.
Rule 2: has a possessive suffix
If the object is possessed, meaning you would translate it into English with “my,” “your,” “his/her/its,” etc., use an accusative marker.
Bugün parkta arkadaşlarını gördüm.
= I saw your friends at the park today.
Derslerimizi çok seviyorum.
= I really love our lessons.
This does not include the situation where a noun modifies a noun, requiring the 3rd person.
İyi bir Türk kitabı okuyorum ancak maalesef evden ayrıldım.
= I am reading a good Turkish book, but unfortunately I left it at home.
We mark kitap with the possessive –ı only because the noun Türk is modifying it. It is not possessed by Türk, and we know that because it would be Türk’ün (=a Turkish person’s). Even though it looks like it, this sentence does not have accusative marker. Otherwise, if it was “I am reading the good Turkish book,” it would be iyi Türk kitabını okuyorum. This combines the noun compound Türk kitabı with an accusative marker –ı, and affix clusters for nouns are separated with -n-.
Rule 3: a general statement about a group, marked by -ler/-lar
If you are saying a general statement about some plural group, you will use an accusative marker (and also probably the aorist verb tense).
Kedileri severim.
= I love cats.
Faydalı kelimeleri öğrenmez.
= He doesn’t learn useful words.
Rule 4: uses hangi (= which)
If your object uses “which,” you need an accusative marker.
En çok hangi şarabı seviyorsun?
= Which wine do you like the most?
Kahvene hangi sütü koyuyorsun?
= Which milk do you put in your coffee?
Rule 5: the object isn’t directly before the verb
This rule overrides all the other rules. Even if the objects does not fit in rules 1-4, you should use an accusative marker if the object is far from the verb, interrupted by some other phrase or expression.
Üç dili Almanya’dan gelen arkadaşımla konuşabilirim.
= I can speak three languages with my friend who came from Germany.
Yeterince para istiyorsak iki sandalyeyi komşularımıza satmamız lazım.
= If we want enough money, we need to sell two chairs to our neighbors.
Because iki sandalye was not right before the verb satmamız, it got the accusative marker -yi. If we rearranged the sentence, there would be no marker because iki sandalye is not definite, not possessive, not a general group marked with -ler, and not a question with hangi.
Yeterince para istiyorsak komşularımıza iki sandalye satmamız lazım.
= If we want enough money, we need to sell two chairs to our neighbors.
Summary
You do not need an accusative marker for direct objects in Turkish, unless in these 5 situations:
- definite
- marked with possessive like -m or -mız or -nız
- general group in a general statement marked with -ler or -lar
- hangi
- the object is not directly before the verb
Hopefully, that makes it clearer when to use the Turkish accusative marker. When I was learning Turkish, I couldn’t help but get confused when all other markers were so strict but the accusative marker got dropped so much. These are the situations when they do not drop it.
If you want to read more about language learning, there are many other articles on this website that can help you on your language journey.
If you want to see more about me and my language journey, including my Turkish struggles, I have a YouTube channel where you can watch that.
Türkçe öğrenen herkese kolaylıklar dilerim!
