Breakdown of Bize ihanet etmesine rağmen onu koruyoruz.
o
that / he / she / it
biz
we
korumak
to protect
rağmen
despite / in spite of
ihanet etmek
to betray
Questions & Answers about Bize ihanet etmesine rağmen onu koruyoruz.
Can you break down the suffixes in etmesine to show how it means "his betraying"?
Sure! The base is etmek (to do). We add the short verbal noun suffix -me to make it "doing" (etme). Then, the 3rd person possessive suffix -si makes it "his doing" (etmesi). Finally, we add the buffer letter -n- and the dative suffix -e (etmesine). This dative suffix is required by the word rağmen (despite) to link the clause together.
Why is "us" translated as bize (to us) rather than the direct object bizi?
In Turkish, the compound verb ihanet etmek (to betray) requires the dative case for the person being betrayed. You can think of it literally as "to commit betrayal to someone." That is why it must be bize ihanet etmesine, not bizi.
How do we know it means "despite him betraying us" if there is no onun (his) at the beginning?
The possessive suffix -si on etmesi (his/her betraying) is enough to show who is doing the action. While you could perfectly say Onun bize ihanet etmesine rağmen..., Turkish typically drops the pronoun when the suffix already makes the subject clear. The later use of onu (him) also gives strong context that it's the same person.
Why is there an -n- in etmesine instead of the usual -y- buffer before a vowel?
When you add any case suffix (like the dative -e) right after a 3rd person possessive suffix (like -si or -i), Turkish always requires an -n- buffer instead of -y-. So it becomes etmesi + n + e = etmesine.
Why is "him" in the second half of the sentence written as onu?
The verb korumak (to protect) takes the accusative case because "him" is a specific direct object being protected. We take the pronoun o (he/him/it), add the pronominal buffer -n-, and then the accusative suffix -u to get onu.
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