The conditional main clause (-(a/ı)rdı)

Making Things Happen: The Causative Voice

Sometimes you don't just do an action; you cause it to happen. For some verbs, this is done by adding -t or -It (with 4-way vowel harmony) to the verb stem.

For example, korkmak means "to be afraid", but korkutmak means "to frighten" (to cause fear). Similarly, büyümek (to grow) becomes büyütmek (to enlarge or to raise).

Imagining Scenarios: "Would" (-(A/I)rdI)

To talk about what someone would do in a hypothetical scenario (like if they were a millionaire), Turkish combines the aorist (the broad, simple present tense) with the past tense ending -dI.

Verb Stem + Aorist Suffix (-r / -Ar / -Ir) + Past Suffix (-dI) + Personal Ending

If we take our causative verb şaşırtmak, we first find its aorist form: şaşırtır (surprises). Then, we add the past tense suffix to get şaşırtırdı (would surprise).

If you want to add a personal ending, it attaches at the very end. For "we would enlarge", büyütmek becomes büyütür + dü + k -> büyütürdük.

This structure works identically for non-causative verbs, too. Let's look at çözmek (to solve) and yapmak (to do):

Causative and Passive Together

You already know that you can make a verb passive by adding -Il or -In. What happens if a verb is already causative, and you want to make it passive? You just stack the suffixes!

You start with the stem, add the causative suffix, and then add the passive suffix -Il (with 4-way vowel harmony).

Stem + Causative (-t / -It) + Passive (-Il)

For example:

• şaşırtmak (to surprise) -> şaşırtılmak (to be surprised)
• büyütmek (to enlarge) -> büyütülmek (to be enlarged)

We can easily drop these double-derived verbs into our hypothetical "would" structure by adding the aorist and past tense: şaşırtılırdı (would be surprised).