Word
Evde kalmaktansa parkta yürümek daha keyifli.
Meaning
Rather than staying at home, walking in the park is more pleasant.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Evde kalmaktansa parkta yürümek daha keyifli.
olmak
to be
ev
the house
park
the park
kalmak
to stay
Questions & Answers about Evde kalmaktansa parkta yürümek daha keyifli.
What does the ending in kalmaktansa mean?
It’s the compact form of “rather than doing.” Morphologically: kal-mak-tan-sa = verb stem (kal-) + verbal noun (-mak) + ablative (-dan/-den, realized here as -tan) + conditional (-sa/-se). Over time this sequence fused into a single comparative form meaning “rather than staying.”
Why is it -tan- (as in kalmaktansa) and not -dan-?
It’s due to consonant harmony. The ablative suffix is underlyingly -DAn and appears as -dan/-den after voiced sounds and as -tan/-ten after voiceless sounds. Because -mak ends in the voiceless consonant k, you get -tan: kal-mak-tan-sa → kalmaktansa.
Can I also say -mektense instead of -maktansa?
Yes. The choice between -maktansa and -mektense follows vowel harmony:
- After back vowels (a, ı, o, u): -maktansa (e.g., okumaktansa).
- After front vowels (e, i, ö, ü): -mektense (e.g., yürümektense, gelmektense).
How is -maktansa different from using the ablative with daha (e.g., “X, Y’den daha …”)?