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Breakdown of Evlerin salonlarında genellikle el dokuması kilimler sergileniyor.
ev
the house
genellikle
usually
-de
in
sergilenmek
to be displayed
salon
the living room
el dokuma
hand-woven
Questions & Answers about Evlerin salonlarında genellikle el dokuması kilimler sergileniyor.
What case and meaning does evlerin have in this sentence?
evlerin comes from ev (house) + -ler (plural) + -in (genitive). It means “of the houses.” Here it marks the houses as possessors of the salons: “the houses’ living rooms.”
How is salonlarında built? Can you break down its suffixes?
Start with salon (living room):
- -lar = plural → salonlar (living rooms)
- -ı = 3rd-person-plural possessive (“their”) → salonları
- -nda = locative (“in”) → salonlarında
So salonlarında = “in their living rooms.”
Why doesn’t kilimler take the accusative -i suffix?
Because the verb is passive (sergilenmek), the rugs act as the grammatical subject, not a direct object. Subjects in Turkish are in the nominative (no -i) unless you explicitly mark them otherwise. Passive verbs are intransitive, so there’s no accusative object here.
What does genellikle do, and why is it placed before the verb?
genellikle is an adverb meaning “generally” or “usually.” Adverbs in Turkish often come right before the verb or at the beginning of the sentence. Here it modifies sergileniyor, telling us how often the rugs are displayed.
Could you replace genellikle with genelde? Any difference in meaning?
You can say genelde as well; it also means “generally.”
- genellikle is slightly more formal and explicitly adverbial (ending in -lik+-le).
- genelde is colloquial and comes from genel+locative -de.
Meaning-wise, they’re interchangeable here.
Why is the verb sergileniyor in this form? What suffixes are involved?
Root: sergile- (to exhibit)
- -n = passive → “be exhibited”
- -iyor = present-continuous tense
No personal suffix appears because Turkish allows dropping the 3rd-person ending when the subject (kilimler) is explicit. Altogether: “are being exhibited” (or simply “are displayed”).
What’s the word order in the sentence, and why does the verb come last?
Turkish is an SOV (Subject-Object-Verb) language. Here the order is:
- Evlerin salonlarında (locative adjunct)
- genellikle (adverb)
- el dokuması kilimler (subject)
- sergileniyor (verb)
Verbs almost always appear at the very end.
Why is el dokuması kilimler used instead of el dokumalı kilimler?
- el dokuması kilimler is a noun-to-noun possessive construction: “kilims of hand weaving.”
- el dokumalı kilimler uses the adjective suffix -lı (“with”), so “rugs with hand weaving.”
Both convey “hand-woven rugs,” but the first is a genitive link, the second an adjectival description. The genitive version often feels more formal or “nominal.”
Based on vowel harmony, why is the locative suffix in -nda (not -nde) in salonlarında?
The last vowel of salonları is ı, a back, unrounded vowel. Turkish locative suffixes follow two-way harmony:
- after back vowels (a, ı, o, u) → -da/-da
- after front vowels (e, i, ö, ü) → -de/-te
Because ı is back, we use -nda (with buffer consonant n due to the possessive suffix).
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