Turkish Accusative Case: Rules and Examples

In this post, we’ll study the Turkish accusative case suffix -(y)i, which many learners find a bit tricky compared to other Turkish cases.

Before we dive into the suffix itself, let’s first review direct objects, because the suffix -(y)i is added to certain direct objects. That's why it's also known as the objective case suffix.

A direct object is the person or thing that receives the action of a transitive verb.

For example:

• Hakan’ı aradım. → I called Hakan.

Here, Hakan’ı is the direct object.

In Turkish, there are two types of direct objects: indefinite and definite.

1. Indefinite direct object

The indefinite direct object refers to something unspecific or a type of thing, rather than a particular one.

Examples:

• Cebinden bir fotoğraf çıkardı. → He took a photograph out of his pocket.

• Babam salonda gazete okuyor. → My father is reading a newspaper in the living room.

• Ben yeni yerler görmek istiyorum. → I want to see new places.

Indefinite direct objects take no suffix, except for the plural suffix, as in the last example.

2. Definite direct object

A definite direct object refers to something specific that both the speaker and listener already know. It always takes the accusative case suffix -(y)i.

Examples:

• Fotoğrafı iki eliyle nazikçe tuttu. → He gently held the photograph in both hands.

• Annem halıları süpürüyor. → Mum is vacuuming the carpets.

• Televizyonu seyrediyor musun? → Are you watching the television?

As we can see in the examples above, the accusative suffix works similarly to the English definite article the, which comes before direct objects.

However, Turkish uses -(y)i even in cases where English does not normally use the.

We can also add -(y)i:

1. to proper nouns (names of people, countries, books, films, sports teams etc.):

• Ben Ayşe’yi çok seviyorum. → I love Ayşe so much.

• Şu sıralar Hamlet’i okuyorum. → I’m reading Hamlet these days.

• Melih Galatasaray’ı tutuyor. → Melih supports Galatasaray.

2. to nouns with possessive suffixes:

• Ben karımı çok seviyorum. → I love my wife so much.

• Biz evimizi satıyoruz. → We are selling our house.

• Çocuklar ev ödevlerini yapıyorlar. → The kids are doing their homework.

• Ravza odasını topluyor. → Ravza is tidying up her room.

Notice that after the 3rd person possessive suffixes we use the buffer letter n instead of y (NOT ödevleriyi, or odasıyı).

3. to nouns modified by demonstrative adjectives:

• Sen bu kitabı okuyor musun? → Are you reading this book?

• Ben şu oyuncağı istiyorum. → I want that toy.

• Çocuklar o çizgi filmi çok seviyorlar. → Children love that cartoon very much.

4. to personal and demonstrative pronouns:

• Sen beni dinlemiyorsun. → You aren’t listening to me.

• Seni çok seviyorum. → I love you so much.

• Ben bu oyuncağı değil, şunu istiyorum. → I don’t want this toy, I want that one.

• A: Bu filmi seyredelim mi? → Shall we watch this film?

B: Ben onu seyrettim. → I have seen that.

This post is just a part of the lesson on Turkish Case Suffixes in my book easy Turkish Grammar with answers 1 (A1-A2). You can find explanations of other case suffixes and grammar topics in the book. 👉 Check out the book here.