Possessive Pronoun + Suffix Pattern — Turkish Grammar

In Turkish, possession is marked twice: the pronoun takes the genitive form, and the noun takes a possessive suffix. This double marking is required whenever you explicitly state the owner.

The Pattern

Genitive pronoun + noun + possessive suffix

Benim arkadaşım.
My friend. (benim + arkadaş + ım)
Senin araban nerede?
Where is your car? (senin + araba + n)
Onun odası küçük.
His/her room is small. (onun + oda + sı)
Bizim evimiz büyük.
Our house is big. (bizim + ev + imiz)

Dropping the Pronoun

In casual speech, the genitive pronoun is often dropped because the possessive suffix already tells you who the owner is. The suffix alone is sufficient:

Arkadaşım geliyor.
My friend is coming.
Adın ne?
What is your name?

The pronoun is kept for emphasis or contrast:

Bu benim bilgisayarım, senin değil.
This is my computer, not yours.

In the course

Sentences from Lingora’s Turkish course

28 of the course's 500 sentences use this, the first in lesson 2. A few of them, with the words “Possessive Pronoun + Suffix Pattern” is about in bold:

Bu benim arkadaşım Anna. O bir öğrenci.
This is my friend, Anna. She is a student.
Lesson 2
Senin için de bir düzine yumurta ve bir çikolata aldım.
I bought a dozen eggs and a candy bar for you too.
Lesson 47
Onun yavaş ve ucuz bir arabası var.
She has a slow, cheap car.
Lesson 110

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