Bahçedeki çiçekler polen salgılayınca çimene sarı bir toz katmanı yayıldı.

When the flowers in the garden released pollen, a yellow layer of dust spread over the grass.

Breakdown of Bahçedeki çiçekler polen salgılayınca çimene sarı bir toz katmanı yayıldı.

• bir: a
• bahçe: the garden
• -de: in
• -e: to
• -ki: relative marker
• -ınca: when
• -ı: accusative
• sarı: yellow
• çiçek: flower
• yayılmak: to spread
• polen: pollen
• salgılamak: to secrete
• çimen: grass
• toz: dust
• katman: layer

Questions & Answers about Bahçedeki çiçekler polen salgılayınca çimene sarı bir toz katmanı yayıldı.

What does the suffix -ki in bahçedeki indicate?

In Turkish, -ki attaches to a locative form (here bahçe+-de = “in the garden”) to turn it into an adjective. So bahçedeki çiçekler literally means “the flowers that are in the garden.”

How is salgılayınca formed and what does it express?

salgılayınca comes from the verb salgılamak (“to secrete”):
• salgı (secretion) + -la (verb-forming suffix) = salgıla
• + buffer consonant -y- = salgılay
• + temporal suffix -ınca = “when/once …”.
Thus salgılayınca means “when (they) secrete (pollen).”

Why is there no personal agreement or explicit tense marker on salgılayınca?

In clauses formed with -ınca, Turkish drops personal endings and separate tense markers. The subject (“the flowers”) is understood from the main clause, and -ınca alone adequately marks the time relationship.

How does -ınca (as in salgılayınca) differ from -dığında?

Both mean “when,” but:
• -ınca attaches to the verb stem (often aorist/present) and implies “as soon as” or an immediate result.
• -dığında attaches to the past-tense stem (verb+-dı) and is a more neutral “when.”
Here salgılayınca suggests “once they secrete pollen (and as a direct consequence)…”.

Why is çimene in the dative case?

Although yayılmak literally means “to be spread,” it functions intransitively: the thing that spreads uses the dative to show its target or direction. Therefore çimene = “onto the grass.”

Why is sarı bir toz katmanı the subject of yayıldı instead of a direct object?

yayılmak is the passive/intransitive form of yaymak (“to spread something”). In passive/intransitive constructions, the entity that spreads (here sarı bir toz katmanı) becomes the grammatical subject carrying out the action.

Why not use yaymak instead of yayılmak?

yaymak is transitive and requires an agent (“someone spreads something”). yayılmak is its passive/intransitive counterpart, meaning “to spread” or “to be spread,” which suits situations where the subject (the dust) spreads by itself.

What is the role of bir in sarı bir toz katmanı, and can it be omitted?

bir functions as the indefinite article “a,” specifying one single layer of dust. Omitting it (sarı toz katmanı) is still grammatical but turns the phrase into a general description (“yellow dust layer”) rather than emphasizing it as one distinct layer.