"Mavi kitap kırmızı kitabın üzerinde."

Translation: The blue book is on the red book.

[RikSha]

Which case does 'üzerinde' require?

[ex_contributor]

üzerinde, just like almost all other postpositions, require possessive

[RikSha]

Ok, then why is 'kırmızı' in the basic form?

[ex_contributor]

kırmızı is the adjective, it doesn't take any suffix. it is the noun, kitap, which takes the suffix

[RikSha]

Aha, thanks! (In Finnish also the adjective is inflected, so that's why I was confused.)

[mizinamo]

Note that Turkish adjectives don't inflect for number, either:

büyük fil = the big elephant
büyük filler = the big elephants

[G0108]

speaking Finnish must make any language seem easy haha

[RikSha]

@language020 I find Turkish quite challenging, but I know I'm not allowed to complain, since I don't have to study Finnish :)

[bramco2]

Would it be wrong to use "üstünde" instead here?

[AlexinNotTurkey]

it is fully ok and accepted already :)

[bramco2]

Ah, okay, thanks. Are there particular cases where only one works?

[Isha517992]

Merhaba! There is no explaination on this sentence, i have no clue whats happening in it. Something on the lines of " Blue book red book's.."what? Plz help. I am sorry for forgetting this so badly.

[mizinamo]

üzeri is something like "its top". (I'm not sure what the base, non-possessed version of this would be.)

Remember that many locations that we would signal with prepositions use special words in Turkish -- instead of saying "in front of the book, behind the book, on top of the book, between the books", they use a generic locative plus a special noun meaning something like "place-in-front, place-behind, place-on-top, place-between" to give something like "at the books's place-in-front, at the books place-behind, at the books place-on-top, at the books' place-between".

So here we have kırmızı kitabın üzeri = the red book's place-on-top.

Plus the locative -de and a buffer consonant -n- (for adding a case suffic to a possessed form) and you get kırmızı kitabın üzerinde = at the red book's place-on-top = on top of the red book.

And what is on top of the red book? The mavi kitap.

So Mavi kitap kırmızı kitabın üzerinde "The blue book [is] on top of the red book".

[Isha517992]

Thank you so much for the detailed explanation, this was a huge help! Here, have a lingot as a token of thanks! :)

[shihaodu]

if the word for 'upper surface' is 'üzeri', why it becomes 'üzerinde' not 'üzerisinde' given that the possessor 'kitap' is third person singular?

[shihaodu]

Seems like 'üzeri' itself is already a possessed form, right?

[mizinamo]

I believe so, though I'm not sure whether the base (unpossessed) form is used, unlike with the synonym üst which does seem to show up without a possessive ending.

[michielvoo]

I looked for "üzer" in Google Translate, Wiktionary, and some other online resources, and I can't find it. It's tricky, because the intro of this skill also mentions that "üzeri" is the location noun. The buffer-n for the locative case suffix indicates that üzeri indeed has a suffix already, but it seems like an undocumented exception.

[Jennie721026]

What is the difference between ustunde and uzerinde

[SARIAthena]

+mavi kitap nereye?
-mavi kitap kırmızı kitabın üzeine.

can't we say that

[mizinamo]

Dative (-E) is for where something is going to, not where something is.

For example, you might be able to say Ördek nereye uçuyor? - Ördek kırmızı kitabın üzerine uçuyor. "Where is the duck flying to? - The duck is flying onto the book."

Or Mavi kitabı nereye koyuyorsun? - Mavi kitabı kırmızı kitabın üzerine koyuyorum. "Where are you putting the blue book? - I am putting the blue book onto the red book."

But not for asking where the book is resting without moving -- that is what the -DE case is for.

[SARIAthena]

ama günlük hayatta birine "bu nereye?" diye soruluyor. ayrıca cevap olarak "oraya" deniyorsa neden "üzerine" denmesin?

[Fred891479]

Is "the blue book is on top of the red book" not correct?

[Todd940413]

It was just accepted for me, and I think it's a little more precise and idiomatic as English.

[FionaChowdhury]

I know this might sound stupid, but isn't the ending -da/-de also meaning on? Or does that only refer to where a place is?

[martin91999]

I really don't understand why üzerinde is being used for "on" when there is de/da for on.

[SafiaLatif1]

Why is the suffix "n" used with kırmızı kitabın (the red book)?

[mizinamo]

Why is the suffix "n" used with kırmızı kitabın (the red book)?

It's the genitive case.

The blue book is on top of the red book.

üzeri is "its top".

üzerinde is "on its top"

But on what's top? On top of the red book: kırmızı kitabın üzerinde.