Questions & Answers about Havalimanı çok büyük.
Why does havalimanı end with an -ı? Is it a possessive suffix?
It is! The word havalimanı (airport) is a combination of two nouns: hava (air) and liman (port). In Turkish, when you put two nouns together to make a new concept, the second noun gets a 3rd person possessive suffix (like -ı, -i, -u, or -ü). It literally translates to "port of the air." It belongs to the same family of possessive endings as the -m (my) and -n (your) you are learning now!
If I want to say "my airport", do I just add the -m suffix to the end of havalimanı?
Not quite! Because havalimanı already has a possessive suffix (the -ı) gluing the two words together, you can't just stack your 1st person suffix on top of it. Instead, you replace the 3rd person -ı with your 1st person -ım. So, "my airport" becomes havalimanım, and "your airport" becomes havalimanın.
Where is the word for "is" in this sentence?
There isn't one! In Turkish, when making a simple statement about a 3rd person subject like "he," "she," or "it" (in this case, the airport), you usually don't need any "to be" suffix at all. Havalimanı çok büyük literally translates to "Airport very big," and the "is" is naturally understood by the listener.
Does çok always mean "very"?
Çok can mean "very," "many," or "a lot." When you place it directly in front of an adjective like büyük (big), it means "very" (çok büyük = very big). When you use it with a noun, it means "a lot of" or "many" (for example, çok çay = a lot of tea).
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