Elon.io is an online learning platform
We have an entire course teaching Turkish grammar and vocabulary.
Questions & Answers about Lavabo sifonu sızdırıyor.
What exactly does lavabo sifonu refer to? Is it the toilet flush?
It’s the U-shaped trap (P-trap) under a sink—the part that connects the basin to the drain and holds water to block smells. On its own, sifon can also mean a toilet flush mechanism, but the phrase lavabo sifonu makes it clear we’re talking about the sink’s trap, not the toilet. For the toilet you’d hear klozet sifonu or rezervuar.
Why is it lavabo sifonu and not lavabonun sifonu?
Both are correct, but they’re slightly different:
- lavabo sifonu = an indefinite noun compound (X Y-(s)I): “sink siphon/trap” as a type or part name. Very natural for household parts.
- lavabonun sifonu = genitive-possessive (X-nın Y-sı): “the sink’s siphon,” pointing to a specific sink’s trap.
In everyday speech, lavabo sifonu sızdırıyor is perfectly natural even when you mean “the” one here.
The word sifonu ends in -u. Is that the accusative case?
Here it is not accusative; it’s the possessive ending -(s)I that appears in noun compounds: lavabo sifon-u. As a subject, it’s in the bare (nominative) case. If you made it a definite object, you would add accusative on top: lavabo sifonunu.
- Subject: Lavabo sifonu sızdırıyor.
- Object: Lavabo sifonunu değiştirdim. (“I changed the sink trap.”)
Can I just say Sifon sızdırıyor?