Existential Sentences with 'var' and 'yok'

Turkish expresses existence, non-existence, and possession through two dedicated existential predicates: var (there is / there are / exists) and yok (there is not / there are not / does not exist). Unlike English which uses the verb 'to have', Turkish uses var and yok in tandem with possessive morphology.

Two main syntactic sentence structures exist: 1. Pure Existence / Location: [Location in Locative] + [Noun] + var / yok. Masada kitap var (There is a book on the table). Sokakta kimse yok (There is nobody on the street). 2. Possession ('To Have'): [Possessor with Genitive / Possessed with Possessive suffix] + var / yok. (Benim) arabam var (I have a car, literally 'My car exists'). (Onun) hiç parası yok (He has no money at all, literally 'His money does not exist'). (Bizim) vaktimiz var (We have time).

Past and conditional forms attach copula suffixes directly to var/yok: vardı (there was / had), yoktu (there wasn't / didn't have), varsa (if there is), yoksa (if there isn't / otherwise). Question forms use the question particle: Var mı? (Is there? / Do you have?), Yok mu? (Isn't there?). Foreign learners often make the severe error of trying to invent a verb for 'have' instead of using possessive + var.