Breakdown of Kıyıda yürüyüp masmavi denizi izliyorduk.
izlemek
to watch
yürümek
to walk
deniz
sea
kıyı
shore
masmavi
deep blue
Questions & Answers about Kıyıda yürüyüp masmavi denizi izliyorduk.
How exactly is the intensified adjective masmavi formed from mavi?
To intensify an adjective in Turkish, we take its first syllable (up to the first vowel), add one of the consonant letters m, p, r, or s, and then attach it to the front of the original word. For mavi (blue), the first part is ma. We add an s to make mas-, and attach it back to get masmavi (deep blue/completely blue). There is no strict rule for which consonant to choose; you just have to memorize the most common ones!
What does the -üp suffix in yürüyüp do here?
The -ip suffix (which becomes -üp here due to vowel harmony, plus the buffer y) is a very common way to connect two actions done by the same subject, acting like "and". Instead of saying yürüyorduk ve izliyorduk (we were walking and we were watching), Turkish uses yürüyüp to smoothly link the first action to the main verb.
If yürüyüp doesn't have a tense suffix, how do we know it means "we were walking"?
When you connect verbs using the -ip suffix, the connected verb automatically borrows the tense and the subject from the final verb in the sentence. Since the final verb is izliyorduk (we were watching), yürüyüp takes on that same past continuous meaning.
The dictionary form of the verb is izlemek (to watch). Why does it become izli- in izliyorduk?
This is a classic case of vowel narrowing. When a verb root ends in a wide vowel like e or a (as in izle-), and you add the continuous suffix -yor, that final wide vowel narrows to i, ı, u, or ü. Here, the e in izle- narrows to i, making it izliyor.
Why is it denizi instead of just deniz?
The -i at the end of denizi is the accusative case suffix, which marks a specific direct object. Because the sentence is about watching "the" deep blue sea (a specific sea, rather than just sea-watching in general), deniz must take the accusative ending.
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