Word
Onun yanında kim oturuyor?
Meaning
Who is sitting next to him?
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Onun yanında kim oturuyor?
Why is there an 'n' in the middle of yanında?
The root word is yan (side). We add the 3rd person possessive suffix -ı to mean his side (yanı). Whenever we add a case suffix like the locative -da (at/in/on) right after a 3rd person possessive, Turkish strictly requires the buffer letter -n- to separate them. This makes it yan-ı-n-da (literally: at his side) rather than yanıda.
Why do we use Onun (his/her) instead of O (he/she) for 'next to him'?
Positional words in Turkish work like possessions. You aren't saying 'next to him' as much as you are saying 'at his side'. Therefore, you need the possessor word Onun (his) to match the possessed word yanı (side).
If I want to say 'next to you', would it be senin yanında?
Exactly! You would say senin yan-ın-da. But notice a tricky difference: here, the -ın is the 2nd person possessive suffix (your side), not the buffer letter -n-. The special buffer -n- is only used after 3rd person possessive suffixes (his/her/its/their) before a case ending.