Noun Cases (İsim Halleri)

Turkish is an agglutinative language: grammatical relations are shown by suffixes added to the end of a word. Where English uses prepositions and word order ('to the house', 'from the house'), Turkish adds a case suffix (hal eki) to the noun. The case shows the noun's role in the sentence.

The Six Main Cases

Capital letters show the changing vowel or consonant: A = a/e, I = ı/i/u/ü, D = d/t. Letters in brackets are buffer letters used after a vowel.

Many grammars also count the instrumental -(y)lA (with, by), as in arabayla (by car), as a seventh case. It is covered in its own lesson.

The Cases in Sentences

• Ev büyük. (The house is big.) (nominative)
• Evi sattık. (We sold the house.) (accusative)
• Akşam eve dönüyorum. (I'm going back home in the evening.) (dative)
• Annem evde. (My mother is at home.) (locative)
• Sabah evden çıktım. (I left the house in the morning.) (ablative)
• Evin kapısı açık. (The door of the house is open.) (genitive)

Things to Know

• Case suffixes follow vowel harmony, and -DA / -DAn also follow consonant hardening: kitapta, kitaptan.
• The case suffix comes last in the noun, after plural and possessive suffixes: ev-ler-imiz-den (from our houses).
• After the 3rd-person possessive (evi (his house)), an n is added before case suffixes: evine (to his house), evinde (in his house).
• Some verbs require a case English speakers may not expect: Sana inanıyorum. (I believe you.) (dative), Köpeklerden korkarım. (I'm afraid of dogs.) (ablative)

Common Mistakes

• ✗ Evde gidiyorum. → ✓ Eve gidiyorum. Movement 'to' a place needs the dative, not the locative.
• Adding the accusative to an indefinite object: 'I read a book' is Bir kitap okudum. (Bir kitabı okudum would mean 'I read one particular book'.)
• ✗ arabaın → ✓ arabanın (genitive takes buffer n, not y)

Each case is explained in detail in its own lesson.