Questions & Answers about Siz de yol arkadaşı arıyorsanız, bana yazın.
What does the de in Siz de mean, and why is it written separately?
It means also/too/as well. This is the clitic de/da, which is always written as a separate word and does not obey vowel harmony. Don’t confuse it with the locative suffix -de/-da (as in evde “at home”), which is attached to the word and follows harmony. The clitic never becomes te/ta; only the locative suffix can devoice to -te/-ta.
Why is it yol arkadaşı and not just yol arkadaş?
It’s an indefinite compound noun: yol (road/travel) + arkadaş (friend) + the 3rd‑person possessive marker -ı on the head noun, giving “companion of the road,” i.e., “travel companion.” The final -ı here is not accusative; it’s the possessive that’s part of the compound structure.
If there’s already an -ı at the end of yol arkadaşı, why doesn’t the object take the accusative?
Because the object is indefinite (“a travel companion”), and in Turkish indefinite direct objects appear without the accusative. The -ı in arkadaşı is the compound’s possessive, not the accusative. If you make it definite, you add accusative to the whole phrase:
- Indefinite: Yol arkadaşı arıyorum = I’m looking for a travel companion.
- Definite: Yol arkadaşını arıyorum = I’m looking for the travel companion (that we both know about).