Spatial Post Positions (Prepositions of Place)

Lessons > Speaking Turkish in 30 Days

Spatial Post Positions

We learned about the Genitive Case and the Possessive Marker in the earlier lessons. If you want to describe the position of a certain object or an action in relation to that object, you need to use a Genitive-Possessive compound structure. While the complement takes the genitive case, the post position (words describing the position) take the possessive marker.

Let’s see the list of Post positions for this lesson:

İç	In/Inside
Üst / Üzeri	On/Over
Yukarı	Up/Above
Aşağı	Down/Below
Alt	Under
Dış	Outside
Ön	Infront
Arka	Behind/Back
Yan	Beside/Next to
Yakın	Near
Karşı	Opposite
Ara	Between

Sentence Structure

Basically, if we want to say that something is somewhere an example sentence will be like this:

• Top arabanın altında.
• The ball is under the car.

Top	arabanın	altında
Subject	Noun + Genitive Case	Post position + Possessive Marker + Locative Case

It is really important that you’ve master the “Genitive Case & The Possessive” topic before you continue with this lesson. If you haven’t understood it enough please go back to “Day 6” to review it.

Let’s see some more sentence examples:

• Silgi kitabın altında.
• The eraser is under the book.

• Çiçek vazonun içinde.
• The flower is inside the vase.

• Bizim evimiz sizin evinizin karşısında.
• Our house is opposite your house.

• Kedi nerede?
• Where’s the cat?

• Kedi arabanın üstünde.
• The cat’s on top of the car.

Using Existential Words

From these sentences, the object that is the center of focus is at the start of the sentence. There are also other ways to make such sentences. You can use “var” or “yok” meaning “is/are” or “isn’t/aren’t” to indicate whether the object is present or not:

• Arabanın üstünde kedi var.
• There is a cat on top of the car.

• Kitabın arasında kalemim yok.
• My pencil is not in between the book.

Using Action Verbs

You can also include action verbs into these sentences:

• Kedi arabanın yanında ne yapıyor?
• What’s the cat doing next to the car?

• Kedi arabanın yanında uyuyor
• The cat is sleeping next to the car.

• Güneş nerede?
• Where is the sun?

• Evimizin üstünde/yukarısında.
• It’s above/on top of our house.

Usage With Case Markers

It is also possible to use the other case markers like the Ablative Case or the Dative Case for use with the post position.

• Buzdolabın içinden dondurma aldı
• He took an ice-cream from inside the fridge.

• Buzdolabın içine dondurma koydu
• He put an ice-cream inside the fridge.

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