Turkish Postpositions and Case: sonra, önce, kadar
How Turkish postpositions govern case: sonra, önce, beri and dolayı take the ablative (-den), while göre, kadar, doğru and rağmen take the dative (-e). The postposition never changes; only the noun's case moves — so the whole topic is one question per word, -den or -e, with worked examples.
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A postposition is a separate word that follows a noun and locks it into a fixed case — some of them always take the ablative, others always take the dative.
What a postposition does
Where English puts a small word in front of a noun — "after class", "until morning" — Turkish puts it after. dersten sonra is "after class", with sonra "after" standing behind the noun ders. A word that behaves this way is a postposition.
A postposition does more than sit there: it fixes the case the noun in front of it must carry. sonra insists on the ablative, so "class" shows up as dersten, never as bare ders. Picking the postposition is picking the case, and getting that pairing right is the whole of the topic.
Which case each one takes
Eight postpositions carry most of everyday speech, and they fall into two clean groups. The table names each one, the case it demands — written as its dictionary marker, -den for the ablative and -e for the dative — and a noun already marked for it.
| Postposition | Case it takes | Marked noun |
|---|---|---|
| sonra | -den | dersten |
| önce | -den | yemekten |
| beri | -den | sabahtan |
| dolayı | -den | yağmurdan |
| göre | -e | bana |
| kadar | -e | sabaha |
| doğru | -e | eve |
| rağmen | -e | yağmura |
Four take the ablative: sonra, önce, beri and dolayı. Four take the dative: göre, kadar, doğru and rağmen. The same noun swings between them: yağmurdan dolayı, "because of the rain", puts yağmur in the ablative, while yağmura rağmen, "in spite of the rain", puts it in the dative.
Two words, and only the noun changes
A postposition is a full word standing on its own, and it never changes shape. sonra stays sonra whatever comes before it — dersten sonra, sabahtan beri show the same form each time. Nothing attaches to it.
Everything grammatical happens on the noun in front. It takes the plain ablative or dative ending you already know, harmonised to its own vowels: ders becomes dersten, sabah becomes sabaha, ev becomes eve. The postposition then follows to name the relation.
Four phrases in full
Two ablative phrases and two dative ones, each read as a single unit.
| Turkish | Parts | English |
|---|---|---|
| dersten sonra | ders + ten sonra | after class / after the lesson |
| yemekten önce | yemek + ten önce | before the meal |
| sabaha kadar | sabah + a kadar | until morning |
| eve doğru | ev + e doğru | toward home / homeward |
Getting the case wrong
The one real error with postpositions is reaching for the wrong case. Each noun looks well spelled on its own, so the slip is easy to miss: it is the pairing that is broken, not the word.
- derse sonra is wrong. sonra governs the ablative, so it has to be dersten sonra.
- sabahtan kadar is wrong. kadar governs the dative, so it has to be sabaha kadar.
- yağmurdan rağmen is wrong. rağmen governs the dative, so it has to be yağmura rağmen.
Time: before, after, since, until
The ablative group and one dative word carve up time. sonra "after" and önce "before" place one event against another; beri "since" marks a starting point that still holds; kadar "until" marks an end point.
| Turkish | Parts | English |
|---|---|---|
| dersten sonra | ders + ten sonra | after class |
| yemekten önce | yemek + ten önce | before the meal |
| sabahtan beri | sabah + tan beri | since morning |
| sabaha kadar | sabah + a kadar | until morning |
Direction: toward a goal
doğru "toward" takes the dative and points at a goal without insisting on arrival. eve doğru is "toward home" — heading that way, not necessarily there yet — and it sits naturally with a verb of motion.
| Turkish | Parts | English |
|---|---|---|
| eve doğru | ev + e doğru | toward home / homeward |
Opinion, cause, and concession
Three postpositions cover attitude and reason. göre "according to" takes the dative and frames a viewpoint: bana göre is "according to me", everyday "in my opinion". dolayı "because of" takes the ablative and gives a cause: yağmurdan dolayı is "because of the rain". rağmen "in spite of" takes the dative and concedes one: yağmura rağmen is "in spite of the rain".
| Turkish | Parts | English |
|---|---|---|
| bana göre | ban + a göre | according to me / in my opinion |
| yağmurdan dolayı | yağmur + dan dolayı | because of the rain |
| yağmura rağmen | yağmur + a rağmen | in spite of the rain / despite the rain |
When time is a measured amount
One case departs from the ablative pattern for önce and sonra. When the noun is a measured quantity of time — two hours, a week — these two follow the bare noun with no ending at all: iki saat sonra is "two hours later" and bir hafta önce is "a week ago". Set that beside dersten sonra "after class", where the noun is a plain event and keeps its ablative, and the split is clear.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I know whether a postposition takes -den or -e?
- Nothing in the shape of the word predicts it; each postposition simply governs one case, and you learn them as pairs. sonra, önce, beri and dolayı take the ablative -den; göre, kadar, doğru and rağmen take the dative -e. When in doubt, recall the fixed phrase — dersten sonra, sabaha kadar.
- Is a postposition the same thing as a case suffix?
- No. A case suffix is glued onto the noun and harmonises with it; a postposition is a separate word that follows the noun and never changes. In dersten sonra the ablative ending is part of dersten, while sonra stands apart as its own word. They work together: the suffix marks the noun, the postposition names the relation.
- Why is it iki saat sonra and not an ablative form?
- Because when the noun is a measured amount of time, önce and sonra follow the bare noun with no case ending. "Two hours later" is iki saat sonra and "a week ago" is bir hafta önce. With an ordinary event the ablative comes back: dersten sonra, "after class".
- How do I say 'according to me' or 'in my opinion'?
- Use göre with the dative: bana göre is "according to me", and in everyday speech "in my opinion". göre always takes the dative, so the pronoun appears as the dative bana, not in its plain form.