Dative Postpositions: göre, doğru, rağmen, kadar

Turkish postpositions split into families by the case they demand of their complement, and one of the biggest families takes the dative -(y)A. The members you'll use constantly are göre "according to / compared to", doğru "toward", rağmen "despite", karşı "against / toward", and the "until" sense of kadar. The headline fact: with these you mark the complement with the dative ending, so "according to me" is bana göre, "toward home" is eve doğru, "despite the rain" is yağmura rağmen. This contrasts sharply with the bare/genitive postpositions like için and gibi, where a pronoun would be genitive (benim için). With this family it's dative — and choosing the right case is the whole game.

The dative ending, briefly

The dative suffix is -(y)A, harmonizing to -a / -e, with a buffer -y- after a vowel: ev → eve, okul → okula, araba → arabaya, şehir → şehre. Personal pronouns have irregular dative forms you must memorize: bana (to me), sana (to you), ona, bize, size, onlara. Those bana / sana forms are exactly what the dative postpositions attach to. For the full mechanics, see the dative case.

göre — "according to / compared to"

göre is the workhorse of this family. It means "according to (a source or opinion)" and, secondarily, "compared to / relative to". The complement is always dative.

Note the pronoun forms: "according to me / you / him" are bana göre, sana göre, ona göre — dative pronouns, never *benim göre.

doğru — "toward"

doğru marks direction of motion: heading toward a place, or, with a time word, approaching a moment ("toward evening"). Dative complement throughout.

The directional doğru ("toward") is a different word from the adjective doğru ("correct / true"); context and the dative complement keep them apart.

rağmen — "despite, in spite of"

rağmen concedes: it sets up "despite X, still Y". The complement is dative — "despite the rain" is yağmura rağmen. This is a loanword from Arabic, common in writing and educated speech.

That last example shows rağmen after a verbal noun (olmama = "my being"), which is how you attach it to a whole clause — still dative. For the full range of "despite" constructions and how rağmen compares with -(y)A karşın, see concession with rağmen.

kadar — "as far as / up to / until"

kadar is special: it lives in two case families. In its comparison sense ("as…as", "as much as") it takes a bare noun or genitive pronoun — that's covered on gibi and kadar and the bare/genitive postpositions page. But in its limit sense — "as far as / up to / until" — it joins this dative family: buraya kadar "up to here", eve kadar "as far as home", akşama kadar "until evening".

So the same word, kadar, demands the genitive for comparison (senin kadar = "as much as you") and the dative for a limit (sana kadar = "as far as you / up to you"). Pick the case from the meaning.

karşı — "against / toward / opposite"

karşı is dative too. It covers "against" (opposition), "toward / facing" (orientation), and figuratively "in response to". The complement is dative: bana karşı, duvara karşı.

Why dative, and how to keep the families straight

The honest answer to "why dative?" is partly etymological and partly just convention you must learn. Several of these were once nouns or verbs that naturally took a goal/target — göre relates to "seeing/regarding", doğru to a straightened direction, karşı to facing — so a "to / toward" dative complement fits their meaning. But you should not rely on intuition to sort the families; the reliable move is to memorize each postposition together with its case, as a package: göre + dative, rağmen + dative, için + bare/genitive, önce + ablative. The mirror-image family that takes the ablative (önce, sonra, beri, dolayı) is covered on ablative postpositions; keeping the dative set and the ablative set apart is most of postposition mastery.

Common mistakes

Genitive instead of dative. The classic transfer from the için/gibi pattern: "according to me" is bana göre, not *benim göre.

Bare noun with rağmen. The complement needs the dative ending.

Dative on comparison kadar. When kadar means "as much as", it's genitive, not dative.

Missing the buffer -y- on a vowel-final complement. "Toward the car" is arabaya doğru.

Key takeaways

• göre, doğru, rağmen, karşı all govern the dative -(y)A: bana göre, eve doğru, yağmura rağmen, sana karşı.
• Pronouns take the irregular dative forms bana, sana, ona, bize, size, onlara — never the genitive.
• kadar is split: dative for "as far as / until" (akşama kadar), but genitive for comparison (senin kadar).
• This contrasts with için/gibi (bare noun, genitive pronoun) and with the ablative family önce/sonra.
• Learn each postposition with its case as a single unit — that's the reliable way to stay accurate.