Sözleşmede her tarafın imzası gerekli.

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Questions & Answers about Sözleşmede her tarafın imzası gerekli.

What role does the suffix -de play in sözleşmede?

-de is the locative case marker in Turkish, indicating “in,” “on,” or “at.”
Here, sözleşme + -de → sözleşmede means “in the contract.”

Why is her tarafın in the genitive case with the ending -ın?
Because her tarafın (“each party’s”) acts as a possessor in a genitive–possessive construction. In Turkish, the possessor noun takes a genitive suffix (here -ın, adjusted by vowel harmony), signaling “of each party.”
Why does imza become imzası?

In genitive–possessive phrases like her tarafın imzası, the possessed noun (imza) carries a 3rd person singular possessive suffix -sı (which harmonizes to -ası after imza).
Thus imza + s + ı → imzası, meaning “its/their signature,” i.e. “each party’s signature.”

Why does the sentence end with the adjective gerekli instead of a verb?

Turkish frequently uses adjectives as predicates without an explicit “to be” verb. Here gerekli means “necessary” or “required,” so the sentence literally reads:
“In the contract, each party’s signature [is] necessary.”
No additional verb is needed in modern usage.

Could we add a copula like -dir to gerekli? What would change?

Yes. Attaching the formal copula suffix -dir yields gereklidir.

  • Sözleşmede her tarafın imzası gereklidir.
    This sounds more emphatic or official, but the basic meaning (“is necessary”) remains.
What is the word order pattern in this sentence? Can we rearrange its parts?

Turkish tends to follow Subject-Object-Verb (S-O-V) order, with modifiers preceding their heads. Breakdown here:

  1. Adverbial locative: Sözleşmede (“in the contract”)
  2. Possessor phrase: her tarafın (“each party’s”)
  3. Possessed noun: imzası (“signature”)
  4. Predicate adjective: gerekli (“necessary”)
    You can shuffle for emphasis (e.g. Her tarafın imzası sözleşmede gerekli), but the neutral form places the predicate at the end.
Why use her instead of tüm in her tarafın?
  • her = “each”, emphasizing every single party individually
  • tüm = “all”, treating the parties as a collective group
    her tarafın imzası stresses that each party must sign, while tüm tarafların imzası would focus on signatures of all parties as a whole. Both are grammatically correct but differ in nuance.