Çenesini tutup uzun süre sustu.

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Breakdown of Çenesini tutup uzun süre sustu.

• onun: her
• tutmak: to hold
• süre: the time

Questions & Answers about Çenesini tutup uzun süre sustu.

What is çenesini made of, and why doesn’t it just say çene?

Çenesini breaks down like this:

• çene = chin / jaw
• -si = his/her/its
• -ni = accusative case marker, marking it as a specific direct object

So çenesini literally means his/her chin/jaw as the object of the verb.

Turkish very often uses possessive endings with body parts. Where English might just say his chin or sometimes leave it implied, Turkish usually marks that relationship directly on the noun.

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Why is there both a possessive ending and an accusative ending in çenesini?

Because the noun is doing two jobs at once:

1. It shows whose chin/jaw it is: çene + si → çenesi = his/her chin
2. It shows that this noun is the definite object of tutmak: çenesi + ni → çenesini

So the structure is:

çene + si + ni

This is very common in Turkish:

• elini kaldırdı = he/she raised his/her hand
• başını çevirdi = he/she turned his/her head

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What does tutup mean here?