Breakdown of Cadı karanlık bir büyü yapmış.
bir
a / an
yapmak
to do / to make
karanlık
dark
cadı
witch
büyü
magic, spell
Questions & Answers about Cadı karanlık bir büyü yapmış.
Why does the sentence end with yapmış instead of the regular past tense yaptı?
The suffix -mış is the reported past tense. It is used for events we did not witness directly. In Turkish, fairy tales, legends, and stories about characters like a cadı are almost always told using this tense because they are passed-down stories, not firsthand experiences.
Why is the verb yapmak used here to mean cast?
While in English you cast a spell, Turkish uses the verb yapmak (to do or make). The standard set phrase for casting a spell or doing magic is always büyü yapmak.
Why is the word order karanlık bir büyü instead of bir karanlık büyü?
When combining an adjective like karanlık (dark) and the word bir (a or an), Turkish places bir between the adjective and the noun. The standard word order for indefinite phrases is Adjective + bir + Noun.
How do we know to use -mış and not -miş on the verb root yap-?
The reported past tense suffix follows 4-way vowel harmony. You look at the last vowel in the verb root yap-, which is an a. According to the harmony rules, an a or ı in the root is always followed by an ı, making the correct suffix -mış.
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