Breakdown of Bu köpeğin sahibi kim?
bu
this
köpek
dog
kim
who
sahip
owner / having / possessing (with dative)
Questions & Answers about Bu köpeğin sahibi kim?
Why does the word köpek have the suffix -in?
Why is it sahibi instead of just sahip (owner)?
In Turkish possessive phrases, you have to mark both nouns. The owner gets the genitive suffix (köpeğin) and the thing owned gets a possessive suffix (sahip + -i). You can think of it as literally saying 'the dog's its-owner'.
Why did the spelling of both köpek and sahip change?
This is due to a rule called consonant softening. When a word ends in a hard consonant like k or p, and you add a suffix starting with a vowel (like -in or -i), the hard letter softens to make it easier to say. Here, k becomes ğ, and p becomes b.
Where is the word for 'is' in this sentence?
In Turkish, the verb 'to be' (am, is, are) is often implied rather than written out as a separate word in simple present-tense sentences. The phrase 'This dog's owner who?' is perfectly complete on its own!