Merhaba,

I am studying the Turkish language and came across something I don´t fully understand. The phrase ´annemin evinde´ means ´at my mother´s house´, and I understand the how and why of that for 95% but:

anne = mother, annem=my mother, ammemin = my mother´s. ev=house, evi=house is the direct object, it belongs with annemin. Evi(n)de ...de is the locative suffix, which should make the sentence complete. But what is that random ´n´ doing there in the middle of evinde?

Thanks a lot for anyone who can give me a hand with this

You are completely correct. Except ´evi´ is also possession, we don´t call that direct object. Both the owner and the thing being owned need to be marked in Turkish.

The ´n´ in this case, in my opinion is very hard for someone learning Turkish in Conversation. You use ´n´ since you have already added a suffix to ev. But you don´t do that with all types of suffixes.

Here is an explanation from http://www.turkishlanguage.co.uk/suffix.htm, I underlined the part.

Static Position Condition:
Suffix -da/-de - any suffix appended to a soft word ending must begin with a soft consonant -d - according to Consonant Mutation rules
or -ta/-te- any suffix appended to a hard word ending in (p ç t k s ş h f) must begin with a hard consonant -t - according to Consonant Mutation rules
or -nde/-nda when affixed to extended words which end in a vowel.
The Static is the condition of place equates to in, on, at in English. (the locative)

Annemin evinde 

At my mother´s house

i ---> her 

n --> this buffer "n" comes when possesive construction ends with vowel [-i..] before case endings 

Onların kalemleri = their pens

Onların kalemleri + n + den [case ending -->from] 

Onların kalemlerinden  ---> from their pens

Onların kalemlerinden bir tane al. ---> Take [from] one of their pen.

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ev = house

evi = his/her house

[Onun] evi --> his/her house 

note that "onun" is optinal here. You can emphasize possession by putting "Onun" when you need emphasize it. 

Onun evi ! 

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