Breakdown of Biz dedektifiz, rüşvet kabul etmeyiz.
biz
we
kabul etmek
to accept
dedektif
detective
rüşvet
bribe
Questions & Answers about Biz dedektifiz, rüşvet kabul etmeyiz.
Why is there no 'r' or 'z' in etmeyiz to show the aorist (simple present) tense?
This is the special rule for the 'I' and 'we' forms in the negative aorist! For other subjects, you use -maz or -mez (like etmez, he/she doesn't do). But for 'we', the tense marker drops out completely. You just add the 'we' ending -iz to the negative stem etme- with a buffer y, giving us etmeyiz.
Why doesn't the 't' in etmeyiz change to a 'd' like it does in the positive form ederiz?
The verb etmek (to do/make) only changes its t to a d when the very next letter is a vowel. In the positive form ederiz, the aorist suffix starts with a vowel (-er). But here, the negative suffix -me starts with a consonant, so the t is protected and stays a t.
Why does the Turkish sentence use the singular rüşvet (bribe) instead of rüşvetler (bribes)?
In Turkish, when a direct object represents a general category rather than specific items, it stays singular. Because they don't accept 'bribe' as a general concept, there is no need for the plural suffix -ler, even though English translates it as plural.
Why isn't the plural suffix -ler used on dedektifiz to mean 'detectives'?
The word dedektif gets the 'we' ending -iz to become dedektifiz (we are detectives). Since the 'we' ending already makes it perfectly clear that there are multiple people, Turkish generally skips the plural suffix -ler on the noun to avoid saying the same thing twice.
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