Kalemin ucu kırıldı.

The tip of the pen broke.

Breakdown of Kalemin ucu kırıldı.

• kalem: the pen
• kırılmak: to break
• -in: of
• uç: the tip

Questions & Answers about Kalemin ucu kırıldı.

Why is it kalemin and not just kalem?

Because kalemin ucu is a possession structure in Turkish, meaning the pencil's tip or the tip of the pencil.

In this structure:

• kalem = pencil
• kalemin = of the pencil
• the ending -in is the genitive ending

So kalemin shows that pencil is the thing that owns or has the tip.

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Why is it ucu and not uç?

The base word is uç, which means tip, end, or point.

Here it becomes ucu because it takes the 3rd person possessive suffix, which is used in this kind of construction:

• uç = tip
• ucu = its tip / the tip of it

So:

• kalemin ucu = the pencil's tip

Also, the final ç changes to c before the vowel-initial suffix. This is a common sound change in Turkish:

• uç → ucu
• compare similar patterns like ağaç → ağacı

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What grammar pattern is kalemin ucu?