Questions & Answers about Bahçedeki çiçekler güzel kokuyor.
Could you break down bahçedeki into its root and suffixes?
Sure. bahçedeki consists of
• bahçe (garden) – the noun root
• -de – the locative case suffix meaning “in/at”
• -ki – the relative suffix turning “in the garden” into “which is in the garden”
So bahçedeki literally means “the one(s) which are in the garden.”
Why is there no apostrophe before -deki in bahçedeki?
In Turkish, only proper names (like city names or personal names) use an apostrophe before suffixes. Common nouns like bahçe take case and derivational suffixes directly, without an apostrophe.
Why is it çiçekler instead of çiçek?
çiçek means “flower.” To say “flowers,” you add the plural suffix -ler, giving çiçekler (“flowers”). We use the plural here because we’re talking about more than one flower.
What exactly does kokuyor mean, and why is it not just kokuyorlar?