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Questions & Answers about Onun arabası yok.
Why does this sentence use yok for "does not have"?
Turkish doesn't have a direct verb for "to have." Instead, to talk about possession, you say "His car does not exist." The word yok means "there is not" or "does not exist." So, onun arabası yok literally translates to "his car does not exist," which is the standard way to say "he does not have a car."
If onun already means "his", why do we add -sı to araba?
In Turkish, showing possession requires marking both the owner and the object being owned. Onun means "his," but you must also add a matching possessive ending to the object itself. The -sı on arabası acts like a matching tag indicating it belongs to him. Because the word araba ends in a vowel, it takes the buffer letter s before the vowel ending ı.
Can this sentence also mean "She does not have a car"?
Yes! The Turkish pronoun o (and its possessive form onun) is completely gender-neutral. Depending on the context of your conversation, onun arabası yok can mean "he does not have a car," "she does not have a car," or even "it does not have a car."
How would I change this sentence to say "He DOES have a car"?
You simply replace yok with its exact opposite, var (which means "there is" or "exists"). So, "He has a car" is Onun arabası var.