Questions & Answers about Adamın çocuğu camı kırdı.
Why is the past tense suffix -dı instead of -di or -du on kırdı?
The root of the verb is kır (to break). In Turkish, suffixes change their vowels to match the last vowel of the word they attach to. Because kır has the vowel 'ı', the past tense suffix uses 'ı', making it -dı. Also, since the subject is third-person singular (he/she/it), we don't need to add any personal ending after -dı.
I know the word for child is çocuk. Why does it have a ğ in çocuğu?
This is an example of consonant mutation. When a Turkish word ends in k and you add a suffix starting with a vowel, the k almost always changes to a soft g (ğ) to make it easier to pronounce. Here, we added the possessive suffix -u, so çocuk became çocuğu.
How do we get 'The man's child' from Adamın çocuğu?
To show possession in Turkish, you add suffixes to both the owner and the thing owned. Adam (man) gets the owner suffix -ın to become Adamın (the man's). Then, the thing owned gets a possessive suffix. Çocuk gets -u (and the 'k' softens to 'ğ'), creating Adamın çocuğu.
Why is it camı and not just cam?