Misafirler gelmeden sürahiyi suyla dolduruverdim.

the water

Breakdown of Misafirler gelmeden sürahiyi suyla dolduruverdim.

• ile: with
• misafir: the guest
• gelmek: to arrive

Questions & Answers about Misafirler gelmeden sürahiyi suyla dolduruverdim.

What does gelmeden mean, and how is it formed?

It comes from gelmek = to come.

Breakdown:

• gel- = come
• -meden = a converb ending, the vowel-harmony form of -madan/-meden

Its basic idea is without coming, but in time expressions it very often corresponds to before coming or before someone came/comes.

So here Misafirler gelmeden is understood as before the guests came.

Why is there no separate word for before here?

Because -meden can already express that idea by itself in many sentences.

So both of these are natural:

• Misafirler gelmeden sürahiyi suyla dolduruverdim.
• Misafirler gelmeden önce sürahiyi suyla dolduruverdim.

Adding önce makes before more explicit, but it is not required.

Why is the verb doldurmak used instead of dolmak?

Because dolmak and doldurmak are different verbs:

• dolmak = to become full
• doldurmak = to fill something, literally to make something become full

In this sentence, the speaker is doing the action to the pitcher, so Turkish uses the transitive verb doldurmak.

Compare:

• Sürahi doldu. = The pitcher became full.
• Sürahiyi doldurdum. = I filled the pitcher.