Questions & Answers about Araba onun arkasından geliyor.
Why is there an 'n' in the middle of arkasından?
The word is built from arka (back). First, we add the 3rd person possessive suffix -sı to make arkası (his back). Then, we want to add the ablative suffix -dan (from). In Turkish, whenever you attach a case suffix to a 3rd person possessive suffix, you must insert the buffer letter n between them. This gives us arka-sı-n-dan.
Why does Turkish use onun (his) here instead of a word for 'him'?
In Turkish, positional words like 'behind', 'in front of', or 'under' are treated as nouns. To say 'behind him', Turkish literally phrases it as 'from the back of him'. This requires a possessive structure, so you use onun (his/her/its) along with the possessive suffix on the noun arka.
Why do we use the 'from' suffix (-dan) instead of the 'at' suffix (-da) on arkası?
Could onun arkasından also mean 'from behind her' or 'from behind it'?
Yes! The pronoun o and its possessive form onun are completely gender-neutral. Depending on the context of the conversation, this sentence could mean the car is coming from behind him, from behind her, or from behind it.
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