Breakdown of Uzlaşmak yerine, başladığımız müzakerelerden çekilmeye karar verdiler.
başlamak
to begin, to start
yerine
instead of
karar vermek
to decide
müzakere
negotiation
çekilmek
to withdraw
uzlaşmak
to reach a consensus
Questions & Answers about Uzlaşmak yerine, başladığımız müzakerelerden çekilmeye karar verdiler.
The current lesson is about adding possessive endings to the short verbal noun (-mA), so why is there no possessive in çekilmeye?
We only use the possessive ending (like in çekilmesine or çekilmemize) when the subject changes—for example, if they decided that someone else should withdraw. Because the people deciding and the people withdrawing are the same here ("they decided to withdraw"), we drop the possessive. We simply attach the dative case directly to the short verbal noun with a buffer letter: çekil-me-y-e.
Why does yerine follow the full infinitive uzlaşmak without any case endings?
To say "instead of doing [action]" in Turkish, you simply place yerine immediately after the full dictionary form of the verb (-mAk). No extra case markers or personal endings are needed on the verb.
How does başladığımız mean "that we started"?
This is an object relative clause. It is built with the verb root başla- (to start), the past/present participle -dık, and the first-person plural possessive -ımız (our). The k softens to ğ between vowels, creating başladığımız (literally "our started"). Placed before the noun, it describes the negotiations as "the ones that we started."
Why does müzakerelerden have the ablative (-den) case ending?
The verb çekilmek (to withdraw) dictates the case of the noun preceding it. In Turkish, you withdraw from something, which requires the ablative case (-den/-dan). Therefore, "withdraw from the negotiations" becomes müzakereler-den çekilmek.
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