Learn Turkish: Bu büyük evrende başka kim yaşardı? - Who else would live in this big universe?

The verb yaşardı combines the aorist tense (the -ar part) with the past tense suffix (the -dı part). Together, they often express a past habit like 'used to', or a hypothetical situation like 'would'. Here, it creates the hypothetical meaning 'would live'. If you used yaşar, it would mean 'generally lives', and yaşadı would mean 'definitively lived' in the past.

Why does başka come before kim when in English we say 'who else'?

In Turkish, başka acts like an adjective meaning 'other' or 'different'. Just like adjectives always come before the noun they describe, başka comes before the question word kim to literally mean 'other who' or 'what other person'.

Does kim always take the third-person singular verb ending?

Yes! When kim is the subject of the sentence, the verb is conjugated in the third-person singular form, which is the same form used for 'he', 'she', or 'it'. That is why we use yaşardı with no personal endings attached to the end of it.

Could this sentence also mean 'Who else used to live in this big universe?'

Yes, absolutely. Because the aorist past tense (-ardı) can mean both a hypothetical 'would do' and a past habit 'used to do', the exact translation depends on the context. As a standalone thought, 'would live' is a very natural translation for a philosophical question like this.