Word
O öğretmen evli mi?
Meaning
Is that teacher married?
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of O öğretmen evli mi?
o
that / he / she / it
öğretmen
teacher
evli
married
mi
question particle (mı/mi/mu/mü)
Questions & Answers about O öğretmen evli mi?
Why is the question particle mi here instead of mı?
The question particle follows 4-way vowel harmony. Since the last vowel in the preceding word (evli) is i, the question particle becomes mi.
Why isn't there a 'to be' ending attached to mi in this sentence?
The subject of this sentence is o öğretmen (that teacher), which is third-person singular (he/she/it). In Turkish, the third-person singular doesn't get a personal suffix. So, the question particle mi stays on its own! If the subject were 'you' (Are you married?), it would be Sen evli misin?.
Could o mean 'he' or 'she' here instead of 'that'?
In this sentence, o acts as the word 'that' to point out a specific teacher (o öğretmen = that teacher). If you wanted to say 'Is he/she a married teacher?', the word order would change to O, evli bir öğretmen mi?.
How does the word evli mean 'married'?
It comes from the root word ev, which means 'house' or 'home'. The suffix -li means 'with' or 'having'. So in Turkish, being married literally translates as being 'with a household'.