Yerine

Yerine is a Turkish postposition and adverb that marks substitution or replacement. Its core meaning is in place of or instead of someone or something, and it can also indicate that an action is performed on behalf of another person. The word is widely used in both written and spoken Turkish.

The primary construction is X'in yerine Y, meaning Y takes the place of X. For example, Eski telefonun yerine yeni bir model aldım means I bought a new model in place of the old phone. Another common use is to indicate an alternative or replacement in a context such as plans or duties: O bugün gelemeyecek; yerine arkadaşı gelecek, meaning He can’t come today; his friend will come instead. A third common pattern is to say that someone will act in someone else’s stead: Toplantıya benim yerime asistanım katılacak means My assistant will attend in my place.

Yerine can also connect clauses to express that one option is substituted for another in a broader sense, including on behalf of someone in a formal or organizational setting. It is often used with pronouns, nouns, or gerund phrases, and is interchangeable with phrases like bunun yerine or onun yerine in common speech.

Etymologically, hemen “yer” means place, and ile is a suffix forming in-place-of meaning; together they yield the sense of substitution. In Turkish, yerine is a versatile, neutral term for indicating replacement, substitution, or acting on someone’s behalf.