Questions & Answers about Paket kapı önünde bekliyor.
önünde = ön (front) + -ü (3rd person singular possessive: “its”) + -nde (locative: “at/in/on”).
So önünde literally means “at its front,” with “its” referring back to kapı.
When the locative suffix -de attaches to a stem ending in a vowel (here önü ends in ü), Turkish inserts an epenthetic n for easier pronunciation:
önü + de → önünde
Turkish is an SOV (subject–object–verb) language, so verbs typically come last.
bekliyor breaks down as:
• bekle- (root: “to wait”)
• -iyor (present continuous tense; vowel i by front-vowel harmony with e)
• zero ending (3rd person singular)
Altogether: “he/she/it is waiting.”
Yes. Thanks to case marking, Turkish word order is flexible for emphasis.
• Paket kapı önünde bekliyor – neutral: “The package is waiting in front of the door.”
• Kapı önünde paket bekliyor – emphasis on location: “It’s in front of the door that the package is waiting.”
Continuous tense uses -yor, and the vowel before -yor follows vowel harmony with the last vowel of the root:
• bekle has e (a front vowel) ⇒ choose i ⇒ -iyor
If the root ended in a back vowel (a, ı, o, u), you would use -ıyor, -uyor, or -uyor accordingly.