Breakdown of Paket açılırken içinden çıkan sürpriz hediye herkesi şaşırtmıştı.
Questions & Answers about Paket açılırken içinden çıkan sürpriz hediye herkesi şaşırtmıştı.
The suffix -(I)rken creates a “while doing…” participle (a temporal converb).
Formation steps:
- Start with the verb root: aç- (“open”).
- Add the passive marker -ıl → açıl- (“be opened”).
- Attach the converb -ırken (vowel harmonized to -ırken because the last vowel is ı): açılırken.
Meaning: “while it was being opened.”
They mean different voices and subjects:
- paketi açarken = “while (I/you/they) were opening the package.” (active voice; paketi is the object of aç-)
- paket açılırken = “while the package was being opened.” (passive voice; paket is the subject of the passive verb açıl-)
Here we focus on the package itself undergoing opening, so the passive form is used.
içinden means “from its inside.” It’s built as:
- iç (“inside”)
- 3rd-person possessive -i → içi (“its inside”)
- ablative case -nden → içinden (“from its inside”)
We drop the explicit possessor (e.g. paketin) when it’s clear from context.
- ablative case -nden → içinden (“from its inside”)
çıkan is a verbal adjective (participle) formed by -an:
• çık- (“to come out”)
• + -an → çıkan (“that came out”)
It directly modifies sürpriz hediye, giving “the surprise gift that came out from inside.”
şaşırtmıştı consists of:
• şaşırt- (verb root “to surprise, to astonish”)
• -mış (narrative/indirect past participle)
• -tı (past tense marker)
Nuance:
– It’s like a pluperfect or reported past: “had surprised” or “it turned out to have surprised.”
– It often implies the speaker didn’t directly witness the surprise (indirect evidence) or that the surprise preceded another past moment.
Yes, herkes şaşırmıştı means “everyone had been surprised” (intransitive).
By contrast, sürpriz hediye herkesi şaşırtmıştı makes the gift the actor:
• transitive verb şaşırt- (“to cause surprise”)
• subject = sürpriz hediye (“the surprise gift”)
It emphasizes that the gift itself caused everyone’s astonishment.
Turkish normally uses Subject-Object-Verb. Here the main clause is:
• Subject = içinden çıkan sürpriz hediye
• Object = herkesi
• Verb = şaşırtmıştı
So: “içinden çıkan sürpriz hediye – herkesi – şaşırtmıştı.”