In my latest lesson, I was given this question:

Minnoş Yumoş´tan daha mı küçük?

My answer was:

Hayır. Minnoş Yumoş´tan daha büyük.

My evaluator added (tür) to büyük.

But I don´t know what this means. Is this the suffix for sentences that state facts like "The Earth is a planet"?

If your evaluator wanted a "tür" at the end of your "büyük", his question should have been "Minnoş Yumoş´tan daha mı küçüktür?"

-DIr can be attached to verbs of nouns. Göksel and Kerslake call it generalizing modality marker. They give examples like

                           yırtıcı bir kuştur ´it´s a bird of prey´

                           güzelsindir ´you are definately pretty´

                           burdadır ´(s)he is probably here´

                           vardır ´there is/there must be´.

Vikipedi says:

Türkçede herhangi bir zamanın genişini (-dir) eki yapar. In Turkish, -DIr makes the aorist of any tense.

My interpretation is using -DIr raises the statement into a more general level. Not so strictly though that it would be used for encyclopedic information only. Look around and see for yourself where it is used.

Warning: this is not a native view.

Your sentence was not marked grammatically false anyway.

dir suffix or their variants (dır-dur-dür-tir-tır-tur-tür). They usually omit it however, it is used to reinforce or express the final case.

In this case, you´re saying that something "really is" bigger, tür suffix reinforces and confirms the idea.

hope it helps

Yes, these answers help a lot. So, if I´m understanding correctly, the -dir suffixes not only make a statement more general, as if it is a statement of more general fact, but also have the property of emphasizing a statement.

No, Abla, the evaluator did not mark my answer wrong. I figured he was trying to give me something extra to think about. Which is a good thing!

Thank you, all!

I read all the posts but this one looks wrong to me;

"güzelsindir" may mean "Maybe/probably you are beautiful/pretty"

but exactly not "you are definitely pretty"

Only it may be such a part of a dialog:

- Ben bunlardan daha güzel değil miyim?... Am I not more beautiful than these?

- Kesinlikle güzelsindir.... (I think) you are (more) beautiful

This sounds like;

1. there is a comparison,

2. and there is no objective measurement for this comparison

3. and the person is not sure about the others´ level of beauty but he think (almost sure) that she is more beautiful than others.

There may be such a fictious and weird story But only "güzelsindir" doesn´t have the meaning of "definitely"

I understand. Often you can express the greatest certainly by not adding any modality markers at all. A simple statement is the strongest comment.

   güzelsindir ´you are definately pretty´

güzelsindir  ´I expext, you are probably pretty´     (strictly speaking, addressing someone you have not yet physically seen)

You are definitely pretty   ´kesinlikle, güzelsin´    

No, Abla, the evaluator did not mark my answer wrong. I figured he was trying to give me something extra to think about. Which is a good thing!

The way the question was presented to you was wrong.