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Questions & Answers about Kuzey cephesinde güneş az; güney cephesinde çamaşırlar hızlı kuruyor.
What exactly does cephesinde mean, and how is it built?
It literally means “on its facade/side.” Morphology:
- cephe = facade/side/front (of a building)
- -si = 3rd person possessive “its” → cephesi “its facade”
- -nde = locative “on/in/at,” with the buffer n that appears after 3rd person possessive → cephesinde “on its facade/side”
Compare:
- cephede = on the facade (no possessive)
- evinde = in his/her house (ev + -i + -nde)
- kitabında = in his/her book (kitap + -ı + -nda)
Why is the possessive used — why kuzey cephesinde instead of just “north facade”?
In Turkish, parts of a specific object are often marked as possessed by that object even if it’s understood from context. Here, the building is understood, so you get:
- kuzey cephesi = “its north facade/side (of the building)”
- kuzey cephesinde = “on its north facade/side”
Saying kuzey cephede is grammatical but less idiomatic if you mean the side of a particular building you’re talking about.
Why kuzey cephesinde and not kuzeyde?