Ağrıya ve yenilgiye rağmen oyuncular pes etmedi.

Questions & Answers about Ağrıya ve yenilgiye rağmen oyuncular pes etmedi.

Why do both ağrıya and yenilgiye have the dative suffix, even though there's only one rağmen?
When you connect multiple nouns with ve (and) before a postposition like rağmen (despite), every noun in that list needs the required case ending. Since rağmen always requires the dative case, you must attach it to both ağrı (pain) and yenilgi (defeat), making them ağrıya and yenilgiye.
Why does ağrı become ağrıya but yenilgi becomes yenilgiye?
Both words end in a vowel, so they need the buffer letter y before the dative suffix. The difference in the suffix vowel (-a vs. -e) is just standard vowel harmony. Ağ has back vowels, so it takes -a (ağrıya). Yenilgi has front vowels, so it takes -e (yenilgiye).
The subject is oyuncular (players), which is plural. Why is the verb pes etmedi singular instead of pes etmediler?
In Turkish, when the subject is a plural human (like oyuncular), you can optionally leave the plural ending -lAr off the verb. Using pes etmedi is perfectly natural and very common, though pes etmediler would also be grammatically correct here.
How does the verb pes etmedi work? What does pes mean on its own?
Pes etmek is a compound verb meaning to give up or to surrender. Pes is a word meaning surrender or yielding, and as with many loanwords in Turkish, we pair it with the helper verb etmek (to do/make) to turn it into a verbal action.

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