Turkish has two everyday ways to say "answer," and they take different cases: the light verb cevap vermek puts what you answer in the dative (soruya cevap ver "answer the question"), while the single-word yanıtlamak puts it in the accusative (soruyu yanıtla). They mean the same thing but belong to different registers and decline differently — a clean, high-frequency example of the vocabulary-reform pairs that run through modern Turkish.
cevap vermek: the light-verb construction
cevap vermek is literally "to give an answer" — a light-verb collocation built from the Arabic-origin noun cevap ("answer") plus the verb vermek ("to give"). Because the real verb is vermek, the construction inherits vermek's case frame: you give something to someone, so the addressee (the person or the question) goes in the dative.
Sorularıma hâlâ cevap vermedin.
You still haven't answered my questions.
Lütfen bu soruya kısaca cevap verin.
Please answer this question briefly.
Bana neden cevap vermiyorsun?
Why won't you answer me?
Note the dative throughout: soruya ("to the question"), bana ("to me"), sorularıma ("to my questions"). You are giving an answer to the question/person. Because cevap is the noun and vermek the verb, all the tense, person and negation marking lands on vermek: cevap veriyorum, cevap verdi, cevap vermez, cevap verecekler.
Splitting the light verb
Because cevap is still a noun, it can take its own modifiers and even be separated from vermek, something a true single-word verb can't do. You can say iyi bir cevap vermek ("to give a good answer"), yanlış cevap vermek ("to give a wrong answer"), or insert an adjective between the two parts.
Sınavda her soruya doğru cevap verdim.
I gave the right answer to every question on the exam.
Bu kadar kişisel bir soruya cevap vermek zorunda değilsin.
You don't have to answer such a personal question.
This separability is the hallmark of a light-verb compound. Contrast it with the genuinely fused cevaplamak (see below), where cevap has been welded into the verb and can no longer be modified on its own.
yanıtlamak: the native single-word verb
yanıtlamak is the verb coined during the twentieth-century Turkish language reform from the native root yanıt ("answer," replacing Arabic cevap) plus the denominal verb-forming suffix -lA-. It is a plain transitive verb, so the thing answered is its accusative direct object — no dative anywhere.
Profesör öğrencinin sorusunu sabırla yanıtladı.
The professor patiently answered the student's question.
Bütün maddeleri tek tek yanıtlamanız gerekiyor.
You need to answer every item one by one.
Gazeteci, eleştirileri yanıtlamak için bir açıklama yaptı.
The journalist issued a statement to respond to the criticism.
Here the objects are accusative: sorusunu ("the question"), maddeleri ("the items"), eleştirileri ("the criticisms"). yanıtlamak leans slightly more formal and written, and is favoured in journalism, exams, and official writing, partly because the reform deliberately promoted such native coinages. There is also cevaplamak — the parallel fused verb from cevap + -lA- — which likewise takes the accusative (soruyu cevapladı) and sits between the two in register: native suffix, Arabic root.
Bütün soruları cevapladı ama biri eksik kaldı.
She answered all the questions, but one was left out.
A reform pair: cevap vs yanıt
The cevap / yanıt doublet is a textbook product of the Öztürkçe ("pure Turkish") reforms, which replaced many Arabic and Persian loans with native coinages. The Arabic-origin cevap never died — it remains completely standard and is more common in speech — while the engineered yanıt gained ground in formal, journalistic, and academic registers. Both are correct; the choice signals register and, sometimes, politics.
| Expression | Origin | Case of object | Register |
|---|---|---|---|
| cevap vermek | Arabic cevap + vermek (light verb) | dative (soruya) | neutral, common in speech |
| cevaplamak | Arabic cevap + native -lA- | accusative (soruyu) | neutral / slightly written |
| yanıtlamak | native yanıt + native -lA- | accusative (soruyu) | formal, written, journalistic |
Bakan, basının sorularını yanıtladı.
The minister answered the press's questions.
Bakan, basının sorularına cevap verdi.
The minister answered the press's questions.
These two sentences are essentially interchangeable; the first reads as more formal and journalistic, the second as more everyday — and note the case flip from accusative sorularını to dative sorularına.
Answering a person vs answering a thing
Both verbs can take either a question or a person. With cevap vermek the addressee is dative whether it's a thing or a person (soruya cevap ver, bana cevap ver). With yanıtlamak, you normally answer a question/message (accusative) rather than a person directly, though answering a person in the accusative does occur in informal speech.
Mesajıma neden cevap vermedin?
Why didn't you answer my message?
Telefonu açtı ama beni doğru düzgün yanıtlamadı.
He picked up but didn't really answer me properly.
cevap vermek and sormak: the question–answer pair
cevap vermek is the natural answering counterpart to sormak, and the cases mirror each other neatly. With sormak the person you ask is dative; with cevap vermek the question or person you answer is also dative. So a question-and-answer exchange keeps the same case on both sides.
O bana bir şey sordu, ben de ona hemen cevap verdim.
She asked me something, and I answered her right away.
Common mistakes
❌ Soruyu cevap verdim.
Incorrect — cevap vermek takes the dative; the accusative belongs with yanıtlamak/cevaplamak.
✅ Soruya cevap verdim.
I answered the question.
❌ Profesör soruya yanıtladı.
Incorrect — yanıtlamak is transitive and takes the accusative, not the dative.
✅ Profesör soruyu yanıtladı.
The professor answered the question.
❌ Sana cevaplamadın.
Incorrect — a person-addressee with cevaplamak/yanıtlamak takes the accusative (and the agreement is off here too).
✅ Bana cevap vermedin.
You didn't answer me.
❌ Mesajımı cevap vermedin.
Incorrect — with cevap vermek the message is dative (mesajıma); accusative goes with yanıtlamak.
✅ Mesajıma cevap vermedin.
You didn't answer my message.
❌ Bu soruya yanıtlamak zor.
Incorrect — yanıtlamak needs an accusative object; the dative pairs only with cevap vermek.
✅ Bu soruyu yanıtlamak zor.
This question is hard to answer.
Key takeaways
- cevap vermek = "give an answer to" — a light verb; the question/person is dative (soruya, bana), and all marking goes on vermek.
- yanıtlamak (and cevaplamak) = transitive "to answer [something]"; the object is accusative (soruyu, sorularını).
- The cevap/yanıt doublet is an Öztürkçe reform pair: cevap (Arabic, neutral/spoken) vs yanıt (native, more formal and journalistic).
- The case flip is the trap — soru*ya cevap ver but soru**yu yanıtla*.
- It mirrors sormak: both put the question/person you answer in the dative.
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