Learn Turkish: Patron ajanın sadakatini kontrol ediyor. - The boss is checking the agent's loyalty.

The base word is sadakat (loyalty). The first -i is the third-person possessive suffix linking it to ajanın to form 'the agent's loyalty'. The second -i is the accusative case suffix, showing that this entire phrase is the specific direct object of the verb. They are separated by the buffer letter -n-.

Why do we use the buffer letter -n- in sadakatini instead of -y-?

In Turkish, when you add a case marker (like the accusative or dative) to a word that already has a third-person possessive suffix, you must always use the buffer letter -n-. The buffer -y- is generally used when adding suffixes directly to a root word that ends in a vowel, but never after a possessive suffix.

Why does sadakat take the suffix -i instead of -ı? Doesn't that break vowel harmony?

Yes, it breaks the usual rules! Sadakat is a loanword from Arabic. In Turkish, certain loanwords act as if their final vowel is a front vowel, so they take front-vowel suffixes despite having a back vowel in the final syllable. You might remember a similar exception with the word saat (clock/hour), which becomes saati.

How does the phrase ajanın sadakatini work together as a whole?