Turkish/Postpositions

Turkish has many postpositions, which are used the same way as prepositions in English. Unlike in English, which postposition you can use depends on the noun's case.

With genitive and absolute
The following are used after the genitive pronouns benim, bizim, senin, sizin, onun, and kimin, and after the absolute case of other pronouns and nouns: In colloquial speech; gibi, ile and kadar may be used with nominative pronouns as well, but this is to be avoided in written language.
 * gibi "like, as";
 * için "for";
 * ile "with";
 * kadar (Arabic) "as much as".

For example, a certain corporation may describe its soft-drink as buz gibi "like ice", that is, "ice cold". However, another corporation may say of itself Gibisi yok "Its-like non-existent", that is, "There's nothing like it". Thus the label of postposition does not adequately describe gibi; Turkish vocabulary proposes calling it a predicate, because of its use in establishing similarity: Eşek gibisin "Thou art like a donkey"; beni küçümseyecekmiş gibi bir duygu "me s/he-will-look-down-on like a feeling", that is, "a feeling as if s/he will look down on me".

The particle ile can be both comitative and instrumental; it can also join the preceding word as a suffix: Deniz ile konuştuk or Deniz'le konuştuk "Deniz and I [or we], we spoke": here the literal translation "We spoke with Deniz" may be incorrect (I spoke : konuştum); çekiç ile vur- or çekiçle vur- "hit with a hammer". Pronouns are supposed to be used in genitive form, but they are often not so in colloquial speech. Senin kadar zeki değilim. or Sen kadar zeki değilim. (Informal)

With dative
Used after nouns and pronouns in the dative case are:
 * doğru "towards";
 * göre "according to";
 * kadar "as far as";
 * karşı "against".

With ablative

 * önce/sonra "before/after";
 * beri "since";
 * itibaren (Arabic) "from…on";
 * dolayı "because of".

With absolute
The following postpositions are case-forms of nouns with the third-person possessional suffix; they can be understood as forming nominal compounds, always indefinite, with the preceding words (see also Turkish grammar):
 * bakımdan "from the point of view of" (bak- "look");
 * hakkında "concerning, about" (hak "right, justice");
 * tarafından "by the agency of" (taraf "side");
 * yüzünden "because of" (yüz "face").