Learn Turkish: Her gece hareket etmeden uyanık kalır. - He stays awake every night without moving.

We take the compound verb hareket etmek (to move). We drop the -mek and add the suffix -meden. The suffix -madan or -meden means 'without doing' the action. We use -meden here because the verb root et has an 'e', so it follows e-type vowel harmony.

Can I use -madan or -meden with nouns, like saying 'without water'?

No, this suffix is only for verbs! It means 'without doing something'. To say 'without water' (a noun), you would use the noun suffix -sız or -siz (like susuz). In our sentence, etmeden is built on a verb root, so -meden is the correct choice.

Why does the sentence end with kalır instead of kalıyor?

Kalır uses the aorist (simple present) tense, shown by the -ır ending. Because the sentence says he does this her gece (every night), it describes a routine or habit. While you might sometimes hear kalıyor (present continuous) for habits, the aorist is the most natural choice for something that happens regularly.

What is the root of the word uyanık?