Turkish hands you two suffixes that work as a perfect mirror image of each other: -lI means "with / having," and -sIz means "without / lacking." Attach either to a noun and you get an adjective. Better still, they come as a pair — for almost any noun you can build both, instantly doubling your vocabulary: tuz ("salt") gives tuzlu ("salty") and tuzsuz ("saltless"); anlam ("meaning") gives anlamlı ("meaningful") and anlamsız ("meaningless"). English needs a scatter of different endings (-y, -ful, -ous, -less, plus the words with and without); Turkish covers the whole territory with one tidy pair.
-lI: with, having, full of, -y
The suffix -lI says the noun is present — the thing has it, contains it, is characterized by it. It maps onto a whole crowd of English patterns:
- "with / containing": sütlü kahve ("coffee with milk")
- "-y": yağmurlu ("rainy"), bulutlu ("cloudy")
- "-ful / -ous": anlamlı ("meaningful"), başarılı ("successful"), tehlikeli ("dangerous")
- "having (a trait/feature)": şanslı ("lucky"), problemli ("problematic")
Sabahları sütlü kahve içmeden güne başlayamıyorum.
I can't start my day without a milky coffee in the mornings.
Bu kadar şanslı olduğuna inanamıyorum, üst üste iki kez kazandın!
I can't believe you're this lucky — you won twice in a row!
Çok başarılı bir sunum oldu, herkes etkilendi.
It was a very successful presentation — everyone was impressed.
-lI harmonizes four ways — -lı / -li / -lu / -lü — keyed to the last vowel of the stem: şeker → şekerli, tuz → tuzlu, göz → gözlü ("with eyes / spotted").
Telefonum problemli, sürekli kendi kendine kapanıyor.
My phone is glitchy — it keeps shutting off by itself.
-sIz: without, lacking, -less
-sIz is the exact negative: the noun is absent. It covers English "without," "-less," and "un-/non-".
Şekersiz bir çay alabilir miyim?
Could I have a tea without sugar?
Korkusuz bir dalgıçtı, en derin mağaralara bile girerdi.
He was a fearless diver — he'd even go into the deepest caves.
Yıllardır evsiz insanlara sıcak yemek dağıtıyorlar.
For years they've been handing out hot meals to homeless people.
-sIz also harmonizes four ways — -sız / -siz / -suz / -süz: şeker → şekersiz, tuz → tuzsuz, korku → korkusuz, göz → gözsüz ("eyeless / blind"). Notice it only ever has s (no hardening question, since s is already voiceless), so it is a touch simpler than -CI.
The pair in action
The real power is that -lI and -sIz attach to the same base, so you generate an antonym for free. Here is the pattern repeated across several nouns.
| Noun | -lI ("with") | -sIz ("without") |
|---|---|---|
| tuz (salt) | tuzlu (salty) | tuzsuz (unsalted) |
| anlam (meaning) | anlamlı (meaningful) | anlamsız (meaningless) |
| şans (luck) | şanslı (lucky) | şanssız (unlucky) |
| ev (house) | evli (married) | evsiz (homeless) |
| renk (colour) | renkli (colourful) | renksiz (colourless) |
| su (water) | sulu (watery, juicy) | susuz (waterless, dehydrated) |
Notice the figurative drift in ev: evli literally "house-having" came to mean "married," and evsiz "house-lacking" means "homeless." This is normal — the pair often picks up an idiomatic sense, so check meanings as you collect them.
On yıldır evli, iki de çocukları var.
They've been married for ten years and have two kids.
Hiç anlamsız konuşuyorsun, ne demek istediğini anlamıyorum.
You're talking nonsense — I don't get what you mean.
Stacking and using them
Because they make adjectives, -lI and -sIz sit in front of a noun like any adjective, and they can take their own further suffixes. A -sIz adjective can become an abstract noun with the suffix -lIk: iş ("work") → işsiz ("unemployed") → işsizlik ("unemployment").
Genç işsizliği bu yıl yine arttı.
Youth unemployment rose again this year.
Kahvenizi şekerli mi şekersiz mi istersiniz?
Would you like your coffee with sugar or without?
That last sentence shows the everyday rhythm: Turks frequently set the two forms side by side to offer a choice — şekerli mi şekersiz mi, sütlü mü sütsüz mü. It is the natural way to ask "with or without?"
Common mistakes
The temptation for English speakers is to reach for separate words meaning "with" and "without." Turkish has the postposition ile ("with"), but for describing a noun, the suffixes are what you want.
❌ süt ile kahve
Incorrect for 'milky coffee' — this reads 'milk and/with coffee', not a milk-containing coffee.
✅ sütlü kahve
coffee with milk (milky coffee).
To describe the coffee as containing milk, derive an adjective: sütlü. The postposition ile expresses accompaniment, not the "made-with" property.
❌ şeker yok çay
Incorrect — you can't use the existential yok as a 'without' adjective.
✅ şekersiz çay
sugarless tea.
"Without sugar" modifying a noun is -sIz, not a patched-together yok phrase.
❌ anlamsizlik
Incorrect spelling — vowel harmony: after sız the -lIk must be -lık, not -lik.
✅ anlamsızlık
meaninglessness, absurdity.
When you stack -lIk, it must harmonize to the vowel just before it: -sız → -lık.
❌ tuzluz
Incorrect — the 'without' suffix is -sIz, not a negated -lI.
✅ tuzsuz
unsalted.
-sIz is its own suffix; you cannot make a "without" word by tweaking -lI.
❌ korkasız
Incorrect harmony — after korku the suffix must be -suz.
✅ korkusuz
fearless.
The stem-final u pulls -sIz to its rounded back form -suz.
Key takeaways
- -lI = "with / having / -ful / -y"; -sIz = "without / -less." They are a matched antonym pair on the same base.
- Both harmonize four ways: -lı/-li/-lu/-lü and -sız/-siz/-suz/-süz. -sIz never changes its s.
- One noun gives you two adjectives at once: tuzlu / tuzsuz, anlamlı / anlamsız, şanslı / şanssız.
- Watch for idiomatic meanings: evli "married," evsiz "homeless."
- To describe a noun as having or lacking something, use these suffixes — not the postposition ile or the existential yok.
- To offer a choice, pair them with mi: şekerli mi şekersiz mi?
Now practice Turkish
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Start learning Turkish→Related Topics
- How Turkish Builds WordsB1 — Turkish grows long words by stacking meaning-bearing derivational suffixes onto a small set of roots — göz → gözlük → gözlükçü → gözlükçülük — so learning the suffixes turns vocabulary into a system you can decode and even coin yourself.
- Adjectives: No AgreementA1 — Turkish attributive adjectives go before the noun and never agree — in number, gender, or case. All the inflection lives on the noun, so güzel is identical in güzel ev, güzel evler, and güzel evde.
- The Agentive -CI ('-er / -ist')A2 — The hugely productive suffix -CI turns a noun into the person who deals in it — jobs, sellers, and fans alike (gazeteci, balıkçı, futbolcu) — harmonizing four ways and hardening to -çI after a voiceless consonant, so the spelling tells you the stem's final sound.
- Origin and Belonging with -lIB1 — The same -lI that means 'having sugar' also means 'from a place' — İstanbullu, Ankaralı, köylü — forming demonyms and belonging adjectives that often turn into nouns; the place-name base plus context signals the 'native of' reading, and you never use a genitive for it.