dilimi

Dilimi is a Turkish inflected form built from the noun dil, which means tongue or language. The form dilimi combines the first-person singular possessive suffix -im (my) with the bare noun and, in contexts requiring a definite direct object, the accusative suffix -i. As a result, dilimi can be translated as "my tongue" or, more precisely, as "my tongue" when it functions as a definite object in a sentence. In everyday Turkish, the nominative possessive form dilim is more commonly used to mean “my tongue” in a subject or non-definite context, while dilimi marks the object of a verb.

In Turkish grammar, dil is an agglutinative root whose meaning encompasses both the physical tongue and the concept of language. The possessive suffix -im indicates that the noun belongs to the speaker, and the subsequent accusative suffix -i signals definiteness for the object role. The combination of these affixes follows Turkish vowel harmony and consonant harmony rules, producing the surface form dilimi.

Common usage involves sentences where the speaker explicitly references their tongue as the object of a verb. For example, dilimi ısırdım means “I bit my tongue.” Another example, though less exact in form, can be shown with related constructions: dilimde bir tat var, meaning “There is a taste on my tongue,” which uses a locative form but shares the same root meaning and possession.

Dilimi is primarily a grammatical form rather than a standalone lexical entry, illustrating how Turkish encodes possession and definiteness within a single word through affixation. See also: Turkish grammar, Turkish pronouns, Turkish suffixes.