Vowel Drop (Hece Düşmesi) in Turkish

Vowel Drop (Ünlü Düşmesi or Hece Düşmesi) is a morphophonemic process in which an unstressed high vowel (ı, i, u, ü) in the second syllable of a two-syllable word is dropped when a suffix starting with a vowel is added. This prevents an awkward sequence of unstressed open syllables.

This phenomenon primarily affects two categories of vocabulary: 1. Body parts: burun (nose) + -um → burnum (my nose); ağız (mouth) + -ı → ağzı (his mouth); omuz (shoulder) + -a → omza (to the shoulder); karın (stomach) + -ım → karnım (my stomach); akıl (mind) + -ı → aklı (his mind); boyun (neck) + -u → boynu (his neck). 2. Arabic/Persian loanwords: şehir (city) + -e → şehre (to the city); fikir (idea) + -im → fikrim (my idea); resim (picture) + -i → resmi (his picture); isim (name) + -iniz → isminiz (your name). It also occurs when forming compound auxiliary verbs with etmek / olmak (e.g., kayıp + etmek → kaybetmek; hapis + olmak → hapsolmak).

Note that vowel drop does not occur when a consonant-initial suffix is attached (e.g., şehir-ler, burun-da, resim-siz). A common learner error is either failing to drop the vowel (e.g., saying şehire instead of şehre) or mistakenly applying vowel drop to words that do not undergo it.