Questions & Answers about Misafirimiz çay içiyor.
How do we get "our guest" from the word misafirimiz?
The base word is misafir (guest). To say "our," we add the possessive suffix -imiz. The -miz part shows it belongs to "us" (plural), and the -i- is a connecting vowel that follows vowel harmony rules.
Why does the suffix use the vowel "i" (-imiz)?
It follows 4-way vowel harmony. We look at the last vowel in misafir, which is i. According to the rules, if the last vowel is e or i, the suffix must use i. For example, if the word was okul (school), the suffix would change to match the "u" and become okulumuz (our school).
Is it wrong to leave out the word bizim (our)?
Not at all! In Turkish, the suffix -imiz already gives the meaning of "our." You only need to add bizim before the word if you want to add strong emphasis, like "This is our guest!"
Why doesn't çay (tea) have an object suffix?
Because the guest is drinking "tea" in general, not a specific cup of tea. If we wanted to say they are drinking the tea (a specific tea we already talked about), we would add the specific object suffix and say çayı içiyor.
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