Word
At et yemez, ot yer.
Meaning
A horse does not eat meat, it eats grass.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about At et yemez, ot yer.
Why do we use yemez here instead of the present continuous yemiyor?
Yemez is in the aorist tense (the simple or "broad" present tense). We use the aorist to state timeless facts, universal truths, and general habits. Since it is a biological fact that horses don't eat meat, we use the aorist instead of -miyor, which usually implies an action happening right now.
How is the negative verb yemez built?
The verb root is ye- (from yemek, to eat). In the aorist tense, the negative for the 3rd person singular (he/she/it) doesn't use the standard -me- + time ending. Instead, it uses a special suffix: -maz or -mez. By vowel harmony, ye- takes -mez, making it yemez (it does not eat).
Look at the affirmative verb yer (it eats). Why is it so short?
The root is just ye-. To make the positive aorist tense for verbs that end in a vowel, you simply add the letter -r. So ye- + -r becomes yer.
The English translation says "A horse", but there is no bir (a/an) in the Turkish sentence. Why?