Tavuk bahçede geziyor.

the garden

Breakdown of Tavuk bahçede geziyor.

• -de: in
• tavuk: the chicken
• gezinmek: to wander

Questions & Answers about Tavuk bahçede geziyor.

What does the suffix -de in bahçede indicate?

The -de here is the locative case ending. It turns bahçe (garden) into bahçede, meaning “in/at the garden.”

Why is it -de and not -da, -te, or -ta?

Turkish uses vowel harmony and consonant assimilation for locative endings:

• Vowel harmony: bahçe has a front vowel e, so we choose -de rather than -da.
• Consonant assimilation: because bahçe ends in a vowel, there’s no devoicing, so it stays d (not t).

What tense/aspect does geziyor express?

geziyor is the present continuous (progressive) form of gezmek (to wander/stroll). It literally means “is wandering/roaming.”

Why doesn’t geziyor have a personal ending like -um or -sun?

In Turkish the third-person singular present-progressive form drops any extra suffix—stem + -iyor by itself implies “he/she/it is ….” So geziyor already means “he/she/it is wandering.”