bu / şu / o as Determiners | Turkish Grammar

The three demonstratives bu (this), şu (that — the one I'm pointing at), and o (that — far or already known) do two jobs. As pronouns they stand alone for the thing itself, and then they inflect heavily — picking up a pronominal n and a case ending (bunu, şuna, ondan). But as determiners — sitting in front of a noun — they do something English speakers find oddly minimal: nothing. They stay completely bare, and every ending that would attach to the phrase goes onto the noun instead. This page is only about that determiner use. For the three-way meaning of bu/şu/o, and for the inflected pronoun forms, follow the cross-links — we won't re-teach those here.

The determiner is bare

When bu, şu, or o introduces a noun, it is a pure modifier, like English this or that. It carries no suffix of any kind. It simply leans against the noun:

bu ev

this house

şu kitap

that book (the one I'm pointing at)

o adam

that man (over there / the one we know)

This much looks just like English: this house, that book, that man. The surprise comes the moment the phrase needs a case ending.

The case goes on the NOUN, not the demonstrative

In Turkish, grammatical relationships are marked by case suffixes — locative "in/at," dative "to," accusative for definite objects, and so on (see nouns overview). The question is: when a demonstrative-plus-noun phrase takes a case, where does the suffix attach?

The answer is: to the noun, the last word in the phrase. The demonstrative stays bare. So "in this house" is bu evde — the locative -de lands on ev, and bu is untouched:

Bu evde üç yıl oturduk.

We lived in this house for three years. (locative -de on ev; bu stays bare)

O çocuğa bir hediye aldım.

I bought that child a present. (dative -a on çocuk → çocuğa; o stays bare)

Şu soruyu kimse cevaplayamadı.

Nobody could answer that question. (accusative -yu on soru → soruyu; şu stays bare)

The logic is that the whole noun phrase is one unit, and Turkish marks case once, at the right edge of the unit — on the head noun. The demonstrator at the front is just a label on the package; the address goes on the package itself, not on the label. This is the same principle by which an adjective never inflects: in büyük evde "in the big house," the -de is on ev, and büyük stays bare too. The demonstrative behaves exactly like an adjective in this respect.

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One phrase, one case ending, and it lives on the noun. "In this house" = bu evde (not *bunda ev, not *bunda evde). The demonstrative is bare; the noun does all the inflecting.

Why this surprises English speakers

English gives you no morphological signal that "this" is behaving differently in this house versus I want this. The word this looks identical in both. So nothing in your native grammar warns you that Turkish splits these two uses apart:

Determiner (before a noun): bare — bu ev, bu evde, bu evden.
Pronoun (standing alone): inflected, with the pronominal n — bu "this one," but bunu "this one (object)," bunda "in this one," bundan "from this one."

Meaning	Determiner (before a noun)	Pronoun (alone)
this / this one	bu ev — this house	bu — this one
in this / in this one	bu evde — in this house	bunda — in this one
this (object) / this one (object)	bu evi — this house (obj.)	bunu — this one (obj.)
from this / from this one	bu evden — from this house	bundan — from this one

The left column never touches the demonstrative; the right column always does, and inserts the n. The contrast bu evi (determiner — case on the noun) versus bunu (pronoun — case on the demonstrative, with n) is the whole lesson in miniature.

Bu evi çok seviyorum.

I love this house. (determiner: -i on ev; bu bare)

Bunu çok seviyorum.

I love this. (pronoun: bu + n + accusative -u = bunu)

The full pronoun paradigm — bunu, buna, bunda, bundan, bunun and the şun-/on- parallels — is laid out on demonstrative cases. Here, just hold the determiner rule: before a noun, the demonstrative never inflects.

It works the same for şu and o, and for plurals

Nothing special happens with şu or o as determiners — they too stay bare while the noun takes the ending:

O adama güvenme.

Don't trust that man. (dative -a on adam → adama; o bare)

Şu masaya oturalım.

Let's sit at that table. (dative -ya on masa → masaya; şu bare)

O günden beri onu görmedim.

I haven't seen him since that day. (ablative -den on gün → günden; o bare)

When the noun is plural, the plural also sits on the noun, and again the demonstrative stays bare. Turkish does not pluralise the determiner the way you might expect from "these" / "those":

Bu kitapları kim getirdi?

Who brought these books? (plural -lar + accusative on kitap; bu bare and singular)

O çocuklarla oynama.

Don't play with those children. (-lar + instrumental on çocuk; o bare)

So "these books" is bu kitaplar, not anything with a plural on bu. (The standalone plural pronouns bunlar / şunlar / onlar "these / those (ones)" exist, but those are the pronoun forms again — see demonstratives bu, şu, o.)

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"These books" = bu kitaplar — singular, bare bu + plural noun. The demonstrative determiner has no plural of its own; pluralising it (*bular kitap) is a beginner error driven by English "these/those."

Common mistakes

❌ Bunda evde kimse yok.

Incorrect — bunda is the pronoun form; as a determiner it's bare and the case goes on the noun: bu evde.

✅ Bu evde kimse yok.

There's nobody in this house.

❌ Onu çocuğa bak.

Incorrect — before the noun, o is bare; the dative goes on the noun: o çocuğa.

✅ O çocuğa bak.

Look at that child.

❌ Şuna soruyu cevapla.

Incorrect — şuna is the pronoun; as a determiner it's bare and the accusative is on the noun: şu soruyu.

✅ Şu soruyu cevapla.

Answer that question.

❌ Bunlar kitaplar çok ağır.

Incorrect — for 'these books' use the bare determiner: bu kitaplar. Bunlar is the standalone pronoun 'these ones.'

✅ Bu kitaplar çok ağır.

These books are very heavy.

The deepest error is carrying the inflected pronoun form into determiner position — saying bunda evde, onu çocuğa, şuna soruyu. The cure is a single habit: when a demonstrative sits in front of a noun, strip it back to the bare bu / şu / o and move every ending onto the noun. When it stands alone, then — and only then — do you reach for bunu, şuna, ondan and the rest.

Key takeaways

As determiners (before a noun), bu / şu / o are completely bare — no pronominal n, no case ending.
The case suffix attaches to the noun, the head of the phrase: bu evde, o çocuğa, şu soruyu.
This mirrors adjectives, which are also bare while the noun inflects (büyük evde).
Contrast the pronoun forms, which insert n and inflect themselves: determiner bu evi vs. pronoun bunu — see demonstrative cases.
"These books" = bu kitaplar: bare, singular bu
- a plural noun. The determiner has no plural of its own.
For the meaning difference among the three, see bu vs. şu vs. o.

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