Questions & Answers about Baba ve babaanne çay içiyor.
Why is "babaanne" written as one word, and what does it literally mean?
Babaanne literally means "father-mother" (baba + anne). In Turkish, it specifically refers to your paternal grandmother (your dad's mom). For your maternal grandmother (your mom's mom), you would say anneanne.
Since "Dad and grandma" are two people, shouldn't the verb be plural (içiyorlar)?
It can be, but it doesn't have to be! In Turkish, when a plural subject is made up of human beings and is explicitly mentioned in the sentence (like baba ve babaanne), the verb can be either singular (içiyor) or plural (içiyorlar). Using the singular verb is very common and natural in everyday Turkish.
Does the verb içiyor use the vowel narrowing rule we are learning in this lesson?
Actually, no! Vowel narrowing only happens when a verb root ends in an "a" or "e" (like oyna- becoming oynuyor). The root for "to drink" is iç-, which ends in a consonant. To make it present continuous, we just add the matching buffer vowel and -yor (iç + i + yor).
Why doesn't çay have a suffix on it, like the accusative case for direct objects?