Deniz suyu çok soğuk olursa, denize girmeyiz.

Breakdown of Deniz suyu çok soğuk olursa, denize girmeyiz.

olmak
to be
çok
very
su
the water
soğuk
cold
girmek
to enter
deniz
the sea
-ya
to
-sa
if
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Questions & Answers about Deniz suyu çok soğuk olursa, denize girmeyiz.

What does the suffix -sa in olursa express?

It’s the conditional marker “if.” Here olur is the simple-present 3rd-person form of olmak (“to be”), and adding -sa (vowel-harmonized) turns it into “if it is.”


Why is -sa sometimes written -se, and how do I choose?

-sa/-se is one suffix. You pick -sa after back vowels (a, ı, o, u) and -se after front vowels (e, i, ö, ü). Since olur ends in u (a back vowel), it takes -sa.


Could I shorten the protasis? For example, say Soğuksa, denize girmeyiz instead of Deniz suyu çok soğuk olursa?

Yes. Turkish often drops parts of the “if” clause when context is clear. Soğuksa… (“if it’s cold…”) or even Deniz soğuksa… works perfectly well.


Why is deniz suyu not denizin suyu (“water of the sea”)?

There are two patterns:
1) A genitive-possessive construction: denizin suyu (“the sea’s water”).
2) A compound noun without any case on the first word: deniz suyu (“sea water”). The compound is more natural for a fixed concept like water in the sea.


Why is denize in the dative case here, not the accusative?

The verb girmek (“to enter”) requires its object in the dative to show direction “into.” If you were simply “loving the sea,” you’d say denizi (accusative). But “enter the sea” needs denize.


Why is the result clause girmeyiz and not a future tense like girmeyeceğiz?

In Turkish conditionals, the aorist (simple present) often carries future meaning in the result clause. So girmeyiz literally “we do not enter” is understood as “we will not enter.” You can say girmeyeceğiz too, but the aorist is more idiomatic here.


How is girmeyiz built morphologically?

Breakdown:

  • gir- (stem “enter”)
  • -me- (negative)
  • -r- (aorist/simple-present marker)
  • -iz (1st-person-plural ending)
    A buffer y appears between me and iz: gir-me-y-iz → girmeyiz.

Why does çok come before soğuk? Is soğuk çok possible?
Adverbs or intensifiers like çok always precede the word they modify. So çok soğuk = “very cold.” soğuk çok would be ungrammatical in Turkish.