Küçücük kedi masanın altına giriyor.

The tiny cat is going under the table.

Breakdown of Küçücük kedi masanın altına giriyor.

• kedi: the cat
• masa: the table
• girmek: to enter
• -nın: of
• küçücük: tiny

Questions & Answers about Küçücük kedi masanın altına giriyor.

What does küçücük mean, and how is it different from küçük?

• küçük means “small.”
• küçücük is a diminutive/emphatic form meaning “very tiny” or “itsy-bitsy.”
• It’s formed by adding the suffix -cük/çük under vowel harmony (and sometimes via partial reduplication) to express extra smallness or cuteness.

Why are there no English-style articles like a or the before küçücük kedi?

• Turkish does not have definite or indefinite articles like English.
• An indefinite noun is simply unmarked: küçücük kedi = “a tiny cat.”
• If you want to emphasize “one,” you can optionally add bir (e.g. bir küçücük kedi), but it’s not required.

Why is masanın used instead of just masa?

• masanın is the genitive (possessive) form of masa (“table”): masa
  • -nın (3rd-person singular genitive) = “of the table.”
• In Turkish, when you talk about a part or position related to something (like “the bottom of the table”), you must mark the possessor with the genitive case.

Why does altına have two suffixes, and what do they do?

altına is made of three parts:
1) alt = “bottom/underside”
2) -ı = 3rd-person singular possessive (referring back to masanın)
3) -na (more precisely -a) = dative case, meaning “to” or “into.”

So altı = “its bottom,” and altına = “to under it” (i.e. “under the table” with movement).

Which cases are involved in masanın altına, and how do they show movement?

• masanın is in the genitive case, marking possession.
• altına is in the dative case (suffix -a/-e), which in Turkish signals movement toward or into a location.
• Together masanın altına literally means “to the bottom of the table” → “under the table,” indicating the cat is going underneath.

What tense and person is giriyor, and why is it at the end of the sentence?

• giriyor = root gir- (“enter/go in”) + continuous-tense suffix -(i)yor (with vowel harmony) + zero ending (3rd person singular).
• It’s the 3rd-person singular present continuous: “he/she/it is entering” or “is going.”
• Turkish follows a Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) order, so the verb naturally comes last.

Why isn’t there a subject pronoun like o (“he/she/it”) before giriyor?

• Turkish is a pro-drop language: subject pronouns are usually omitted because the verb ending indicates person and number.
• In giriyor, the lack of an explicit ending (the zero suffix) tells you it’s 3rd person singular, so adding o is unnecessary unless you want to stress or contrast the subject.