Questions & Answers about Kötü cadı kediye kızmış.
Why does this sentence use kızmış instead of the regular past tense kızdı?
The suffix -mış is the reported or inferential past tense. You use it when you didn't see an event happen yourself, but heard about it from someone else. In Turkish, fairy tales and stories about mythical creatures like a cadı (witch) are almost always told using this -mış tense!
Why does "at the cat" translate to kediye here?
In English, we get angry "at" or "with" someone. But in Turkish, the verb kızmak (to get angry) requires the dative case, which shows direction. You get angry towards someone. To form this, we take kedi (cat), add the buffer letter -y-, and then add the dative suffix -e to get kediye.
Could kızmış mean something other than "got angry"?
Yes! While kızmak literally means "to get angry," in everyday Turkish it is very commonly used to mean "to scold" or "to yell at." Depending on the story, this sentence could easily mean "The evil witch scolded the cat."
Why is the reported past suffix spelled -mış and not -miş or -muş?
This suffix follows 4-way vowel harmony. You have to look at the last vowel of the verb root, which is kız-. Since the vowel is an undotted ı, the suffix must also use an undotted ı, making it -mış.
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