Jeoloji dersinde fay hattı haritası üzerinde magma akışını inceledik.

In geology class, we examined the magma flow on the fault line map.

Breakdown of Jeoloji dersinde fay hattı haritası üzerinde magma akışını inceledik.

• incelemek: to examine
• harita: the map
• üzerinde: on
• ders: the lesson
• -de: in
• jeoloji: geology
• fay hattı: the fault line
• magma akışı: the magma flow

Questions & Answers about Jeoloji dersinde fay hattı haritası üzerinde magma akışını inceledik.

What do the suffixes in dersinde represent?

• ders = “lesson/class”
• -i = 3rd-person possessive (“the …”)
• -nde = buffer n + locative -de (“in/at”)
Altogether, dersinde means “in the class.”

Why is it jeoloji dersinde instead of simply derste?

derste by itself would mean “in the lesson” generically. To specify which lesson, Turkish first makes a possessive compound:
jeoloji + ders + -i = jeoloji dersi (“geology lesson”),
then adds -nde for location → jeoloji dersinde = “in the geology class.”

How is the phrase fay hattı haritası built up?

It’s a chain of genitive/possessive forms to say “map of the fault line”:

1. fay = “fault”
2. hat
   • -ı → hattı = “line of the fault” (“fault line”)
3. harita
   • -sı → haritası = “map of the …”
     So fay hattı haritası literally = “its map of the line of the fault.”

What role does üzerinde play in haritası üzerinde?

üzerinde is a postposition meaning “on top of/over.” You attach it after the noun (with its possessive):
haritası üzerinde = “on the map.”

Why are words like üzerinde placed after the noun in Turkish?

Turkish uses postpositions rather than prepositions. Spatial relations (on, under, between, etc.) are expressed by words that follow the noun, often carrying their own case marking.

Why is magma akışını in the accusative case?

They studied a specific magma flow (“the magma flow”), so Turkish marks a definite direct object with the -(y)I suffix (accusative). Here akış + -ını (vowel-harmony ı + buffer n) = akışını.

How do you form the past tense inceledik, and what do its parts mean?

Verb stem incele- (“examine/study”) + past-tense -di → incele-di (“he/she/it examined”) + 1st-person plural -k → inceledik = “we examined.”

Why isn’t the subject pronoun written (“we”) in the sentence?

Turkish verb endings encode person/number. The -dik in inceledik already means “we,” so the pronoun biz is unnecessary and typically dropped when context is clear.

What is the basic word order in this Turkish sentence?

Turkish is generally Subject-Object-Verb (SOV). Here the subject “we” is implied, then location/time phrases (jeoloji dersinde, fay hattı haritası üzerinde), the object (magma akışını), and finally the verb (inceledik).