Questions & Answers about Tavuk fırında pişiriliyor.
Why is the verb pişiriliyor in the passive voice?
Turkish often uses the passive to focus on the action or the thing undergoing the action (“the chicken being cooked”) rather than on who performs it. It also lets you omit the agent when it’s unknown or unimportant.
How do you form the passive in Turkish, as seen in pişiriliyor?
You build it in steps:
- Start with the verb root: pişir- (“to cook”)
- Add the passive suffix -il- → pişiril-
- Add the tense/aspect suffix -iyor (present continuous) → pişiriliyor
- (Optionally) add person endings; here it’s zero-marked for 3rd-person singular.
Why is tavuk not marked by any case ending here?
In a passive construction, the original object becomes the subject and appears in the nominative case (no suffix). So tavuk is the subject of pişiriliyor.
What case is fırında, and why is the locative used instead of the dative?
Fırın (“oven”) + locative suffix -da → fırında, meaning “in/at the oven.” The locative marks the place where the action happens. The dative fırına (“to the oven”) would imply motion toward it, not cooking inside.