Yoğunluk arttıkça trafik akışı yavaşlıyor.

As density increases, the traffic flow slows down.

Breakdown of Yoğunluk arttıkça trafik akışı yavaşlıyor.

• trafik: the traffic
• artmak: to increase
• akış: the flow
• yavaşlamak: to slow down

Questions & Answers about Yoğunluk arttıkça trafik akışı yavaşlıyor.

What does the suffix -dikçe mean in arttıkça and how does it work?

-dikçe is an adverbial clause-forming suffix that means “as/when(X) happens” or “the more X… the more…”. You attach it to a verb stem (here art- from artmak, “to increase”). So arttıkça literally means “as it increases.” In English we render the whole clause yoğunluk arttıkça as “as density increases.”

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Why is arttıkça written with a double t in the middle?

This is due to consonant and vowel harmony plus assimilation:

1. The verb stem is art- (ending in voiceless t).
2. The suffix in its basic form is -dikçe (with voiced d).
3. Voicing assimilation turns that d into t after the voiceless t of art-, giving arttikçe.
4. Vowel harmony then adjusts the vowel i to ı (back vowel after t), so you get arttıkça.

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Why does akış have a -ı at the end in trafik akışı?

In Turkish noun-noun compounds expressing “A of B,” the second noun takes a third-person possessive suffix. Here akış (“flow”) becomes akışı (“its flow”), so trafik akışı literally is “the flow of traffic” (i.e. “traffic flow”).

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Could we say trafik akımı instead of trafik akışı, and is there a difference?