Lahana çorbası sağlıklı.

to be

Breakdown of Lahana çorbası sağlıklı.

• sağlıklı: healthy
• lahana çorbası: the cabbage soup

Questions & Answers about Lahana çorbası sağlıklı.

Why isn’t there a verb like to be (is) in Lahana çorbası sağlıklı?

In Turkish present-tense statements the copula is usually dropped. You simply put the subject and its descriptor side by side.

• Lahana çorbası sağlıklı literally “cabbage soup healthy.”
• If you want the formal copula you add -dır: Lahana çorbası sağlıklıdır.

Why does sağlıklı come after lahana çorbası? Aren’t adjectives supposed to precede nouns?

When an adjective modifies a noun directly, it indeed comes before (e.g. sağlıklı çorba = healthy soup). But here sağlıklı is used predicatively—like saying “is healthy.” In predicates Turkish places the noun first, then the adjective.

What is the structure of lahana çorbası? Why is there a -sı at the end of çorba?

This is a noun-noun compound meaning “cabbage soup.” The second noun takes a possessive suffix to show “of cabbage.”

• çorba
  • 3rd-person singular possessor -sı (with vowel harmony) → çorbası
• So literally “its soup” → “soup of cabbage.”

Why is lahana unmarked? Shouldn’t it have a suffix too?

In Turkish compounds the first noun stays in its bare form; only the second noun gets the possessive ending. Thus lahana remains unchanged, and çorba becomes çorbası.