Word
Berber sakalı ve bıyığı yıkayıp kurutuyor.
Meaning
The barber washes the beard and mustache and dries them.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Berber sakalı ve bıyığı yıkayıp kurutuyor.
ve
and
yıkamak
to wash
berber
barber
kurutmak
to dry (by air or heat)
Questions & Answers about Berber sakalı ve bıyığı yıkayıp kurutuyor.
How do we know the tense and subject for yıkayıp if it has no endings for them?
The -(y)ıp suffix connects two verbs, acting like "and" in English. The first verb (yıkayıp) automatically shares the tense and subject of the main, final verb in the sentence. Since kurutuyor means "he/she is drying" (present continuous tense), we know the barber is also currently doing the washing.
Why is there a -y- in the middle of yıkayıp?
The root of the verb "to wash" is yıka-, which ends in a vowel. Because the sequencing suffix -ıp also starts with a vowel, we must insert the buffer letter -y- to smoothly link them together.
Why do the words for beard (sakal) and mustache (bıyık) change to sakalı and bıyığı?
They take the accusative case ending -ı because they are the specific direct objects receiving the action (the specific things being washed and dried). For bıyık, adding this vowel causes consonant mutation, softening the final hard -k into a "soft g" (-ğ-).
The English translation includes "dries them", but there is no Turkish word for "them" here. Why?
Turkish often drops pronouns when the context is perfectly clear. Since sakalı ve bıyığı were just established as the objects of the washing, it is naturally understood that they are also the objects being dried. Adding onları ("them") right before kurutuyor wouldn't be grammatically wrong, but it is unnecessary and sounds less natural.