doktoruna

Doktoruna is a Turkish term that means “to his/her doctor” or more broadly “to one’s doctor” when the possessor is in the third person singular. It is formed by combining the noun doktor with Turkish possessive and dative suffixes, reflecting the language’s agglutinative structure. The meaning changes with the possessor; for example, doktoruna can indicate the recipient of an action (to the doctor belonging to someone) rather than a generic “to the doctor.”

Morphology and usage notes: In Turkish, the noun doktor takes a third-person singular possessive suffix, which yields doktoru meaning “his/her doctor.” The dative case suffix -a or -e is then appended to indicate “to” or “toward.” When combining these suffixes, the resulting form is dokhtoruna (with the exact vowels adjusted by vowel harmony, typically -una for the combination with a stem ending in o). Thus dokt0runa expresses “to his/her doctor.” The exact form can vary with the surrounding vowels, but doktoruna is the standard and most common realization.

Examples:

- Hasta doktoruna gitti. The patient went to his/her doctor.

- Doktoruna güveniyorum. I trust his/her doctor.

Related distinctions: Doktora means “to the doctor” without any possessive meaning. Doktorunun means “his/her doctor’s” (the doctor belonging to him/her). Turkish grammar often uses such suffix chains to encode possession and case directly on the noun.

See also: Turkish grammar, possessive suffixes, dative case, suffix order in Turkish.