Questions & Answers about Zürafalar ağaç gibi uzun.
Why does gibi come after ağaç instead of before it?
Gibi is a postposition, which means it works like an English preposition but comes after the word it links to. So, instead of saying "like a tree", Turkish says "tree like" (ağaç gibi).
In English it says "like trees", so why is it singular ağaç instead of ağaçlar?
Where is the word for "are"? And shouldn't it be uzunlar since giraffes is plural?
In the present tense, the "to be" verb (am/is/are) is often just implied. You could say uzunlar, but because the subject Zürafalar already has the plural suffix -lar, you don't need to repeat it on the adjective. Uzun alone works perfectly.
Does the word gibi ever change to match vowel harmony?
No! Because gibi is a separate, standalone word and not a suffix, its spelling never changes to match the vowels of the noun before it. It will always be gibi.
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