Questions & Answers about Kedi arka kapıda gizleniyor.
Why is there no word for the or a before kedi?
Turkish does not have articles like the or a. Whether a noun is definite or indefinite is shown by context or by using bir (“one/a”) before it. If you want to say “a cat,” you’d say bir kedi. Leaving kedi on its own simply means “(a) cat” or “the cat,” depending on the situation.
Why isn’t kedi marked with any case ending here?
In Turkish, the subject of an intransitive verb stays in the nominative case, which is unmarked. Case endings appear on objects or on nouns showing location, possession, direction, etc., but subjects of sentences like this remain as just kedi.
What role does the -da in kapıda play?
The suffix -da is the locative case, which you can think of as “in/at/on” in English. So kapıda literally means “at the door” or “on the door,” here specifying the location (“at the back door”).
How did we decide on the exact form -da (instead of -de, -ta or -te) for kapıda?