Deniz suyu çok soğuk olursa, denize girmeyiz.

to be

Breakdown of Deniz suyu çok soğuk olursa, denize girmeyiz.

• çok: very
• su: the water
• soğuk: cold

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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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