Breakdown of Bu mazeretten dolayı müdür çok kızdı.
bu
this
çok
very
müdür
manager, director
kızmak
to get angry
dolayı
due to, because of
mazeret
excuse
Questions & Answers about Bu mazeretten dolayı müdür çok kızdı.
Why does mazeret take the -ten ending before dolayı?
The postposition dolayı (due to / because of) always requires the preceding noun to be in the ablative case (-den / -dan). Because mazeret (excuse) ends in a voiceless consonant (t), the suffix undergoes consonant harmony and changes to -ten.
Could I use ötürü in this sentence instead?
Yes! You can say Bu mazeretten ötürü, which means exactly the same thing. Both dolayı and ötürü require the ablative case and are interchangeable, though dolayı is a bit more common in everyday conversation.
How is this different from using yüzünden to mean 'because of'?
You could say Bu mazeret yüzünden to mean the same thing, but the grammar is different. Yüzünden attaches directly to a plain noun or takes the genitive case, whereas dolayı always requires the ablative (-den / -dan). Additionally, yüzünden often implies blame or a negative outcome ('the fault of'), whereas dolayı is more neutral.
I learned that kızmak (to get angry) takes the dative case (-e / -a). Why isn't there a dative case here?
You use the dative case to show who or what you are directing your anger at (for example, müdür adama kızdı - the manager got angry at the man). In this sentence, the manager isn't angry at the excuse; he is angry because of it. Therefore, the reason is expressed using the -den dolayı structure instead of the dative.
The English translation says 'got angry', but isn't kızdı just the past tense 'was angry'?
In Turkish, verbs describing emotions often describe the change of state (the process of becoming something). Kızmak literally means 'to get angry'. So, putting it in the past tense (kızdı) means the action of getting angry was completed ('he got angry'). If you wanted to describe his ongoing state of being angry in the past, you would use an adjective: kızgındı (he was angry).
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