-ım/-im/-um/-üm

In Azerbaijani, possession is marked on the object itself. While you can use the pronoun mənim (my) — which is the genitive case of mən (I) — for emphasis, the suffix is the essential part.

1. Consonant-Ending Nouns (4-way harmony):

• If the last vowel is a, ı → -ım (e.g., ad → adım 'my name')
• If the last vowel is e, ə, i → -im (e.g., ev → evim 'my house')
• If the last vowel is o, u → -um (e.g., dost → dostum 'my friend')
• If the last vowel is ö, ü → -üm (e.g., göz → gözüm 'my eye')

2. Vowel-Ending Nouns:
If the word ends in a vowel, the suffix is just -m (e.g., ana → anam).
Exceptions: The words su (water) and nə (what), as well as five common loanwords (tale, mövqe, mənbə, mənşə, mənafe), do not use the shortened -m. Instead, they take the full vowel-initial suffix (-ım/-im/-um/-üm) along with a buffer y: su + y + um → suyum, nəyim, taleyim.

3. Plural and Proper Nouns:

• Plural Nouns: The possessive suffix comes after the plural suffix. Because the plural suffix ends in a consonant, it always takes the consonant-ending rule (e.g., dost + lar + ım → dostlarım 'my friends').
• Proper Nouns: Possessive suffixes attach directly to proper nouns without an apostrophe (e.g., Azərbaycanım 'my Azerbaijan').

4. Phonological Changes:

• Consonant Changes: In native polysyllabic words, final k changes to y (çörək → çörəyim) and q changes to ğ (uşaq → uşağım). Monosyllabic words and polysyllabic foreign loanwords (e.g., hüquq → hüququm, əmlak → əmlakım) usually do not change.
• Double Consonants: Monosyllabic Arabic loanwords ending in a double consonant (e.g., sirr, haqq, hiss) retain both consonants when a vowel-initial possessive suffix is added (e.g., sirrim, haqqım, hissim).
• Vowel Deletion: Some two-syllable nouns drop their second vowel when a suffix is added. Arabic/Persian loanwords (like şəkil → şəklim) drop this vowel when ANY vowel-initial suffix is added. However, native Azerbaijani body parts (like beyin → beynim, ağız → ağzım), as well as a few other words like oğul (son → oğlum) and ağıl (mind → ağlım), drop their second vowel ONLY when a possessive suffix is added.

Harmony after a Plural:
The nearest vowel is now the unrounded vowel in -lar/-lər, so use -larım or -lərim, never rounded -larum or -lərüm. Compare dostum (my friend) with dostlarım (my friends), and gözüm (my eye) with gözlərim (my eyes). The stem vowel does not control the possessive across the plural suffix.