Questions & Answers about Birinci takımın madalyası altındı.
How is the ordinal suffix added to make birinci?
The ordinal suffix is -(I)ncI. Because the word bir (one) ends in a consonant and its vowel is i, we follow 4-way vowel harmony and attach -inci.
Why does madalya get the -sı suffix?
It's part of a genitive-possessive pair: takımın madalyası (the team's medal). The owner (takım) gets the genitive suffix -ın, and the owned item (madalya) gets the possessive suffix. Because madalya ends in a vowel, we use the buffer letter s before adding the -ı.
Could altındı mean "it was under"? I've seen altında used for "under".
That is a great catch, but no! The word for "under" comes from the root alt (bottom). The word for "gold" is simply the noun altın. Here, we are taking altın and adding the past tense suffix -dı to say "it was gold".
How does the word altındı translate to "was gold"?
In Turkish, you don't need a separate verb word for "was". You can attach the past tense suffix (like -dı, -di, -du, -dü) directly to the end of a noun or adjective to describe what something used to be.