Fay hattı tehlikeli.

The fault line is dangerous.

Breakdown of Fay hattı tehlikeli.

• olmak: to be
• tehlikeli: dangerous
• fay hattı: the fault line

Questions & Answers about Fay hattı tehlikeli.

Why is there no article “the” or “a” before fay hattı?

Turkish simply doesn’t have definite or indefinite articles like English does. You state the noun on its own and context tells you if it’s “a” or “the.”

• Fay hattı tehlikeli. can mean “The fault line is dangerous.”
• If you really want to say “A fault line is dangerous,” you could add bir: Bir fay hattı tehlikeli.

What does the -ı in hattı indicate? Is it the accusative case?

No, it’s not the direct-object (accusative) marker here. It’s the 3rd person singular possessive suffix.

• hatt (line) + -ı → hattı literally “its line.”
• fay hattı therefore literally means “the fault’s line” → English “fault line.”

The accusative suffix in Turkish also looks like -ı/-i/-u/-ü, but it usually attaches to the end of a phrase and often has a buffer -y after a vowel: e.g. kitabı (“the book” as object). Here there’s no buffer y, and the context (possession in a compound) is different.

Why isn’t fay in the genitive case, like fayın hattı?

Because fay hattı is a lexicalized compound (a fixed phrase) meaning “fault line.” In regular possession you would say something like bu fayın hattı (“the line of this fault”), but when two nouns combine into a single technical term, Turkish often drops the genitive marking on the first element.

Why is there no verb like “is” or “olmak” in Fay hattı tehlikeli?

In Turkish the present-tense copula (to be) for 3rd person is usually omitted. You simply put Subject + Predicate.

• Fay hattı tehlikeli. = “The fault line is dangerous.”
  If you want to be very formal or emphasize it, you can add the suffix -dir to the adjective:
• Fay hattı tehlikelidir.

Why does the adjective tehlikeli come at the end, instead of before fay hattı?

Turkish follows a Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) or more generally Nominal-Predicate order. In a simple “X is Y” sentence, the noun (X) comes first, the adjective or predicate (Y) comes last:

• [Subject] Fay hattı
  • [Predicate] tehlikeli.

How is tehlikeli formed?

• The noun tehlike means “danger.”
• You add the adjective-forming suffix -li, which becomes -li/-lı/-lu/-lü by vowel harmony. Since tehlike ends in e, you get tehlike + li = tehlikeli (“dangerous”).

How do I pronounce Fay hattı tehlikeli?

Each Turkish letter is pronounced. Rough phonetic guide:

• Fay = /faj/ (“fie”)
• hattı = /ˈhat.tɯ/ (double t-sound; “hut-tuh” with a back, unrounded vowel for ı)
• tehlikeli = /teh.liˈke.li/ (“teh-lee-keh-lee”)

The Turkish ı (dotless i) is a high, back, unrounded vowel – somewhat like the “e” in English “taken,” but more centralized.