Breakdown of Aç kurt kapkaranlık gecelerde sürüye saldırırmış.
aç
hungry
gece
night
saldırmak
to attack
kapkaranlık
pitch dark
sürü
flock, herd
kurt
wolf
Questions & Answers about Aç kurt kapkaranlık gecelerde sürüye saldırırmış.
Why is saldırırmış used here instead of just saldırırdı for 'would attack'?
The ending -mış added to the aorist (saldır-ır-mış) shows that this is something heard from others, a legend, or a general tale rather than something the speaker witnessed firsthand. While saldırırdı (aorist + past) also means 'used to attack' or 'would attack', saldırırmış adds a storytelling or 'rumor has it' flavor, which fits perfectly when talking about wolves in the dark!
Why does sürü (flock) take the -ye ending here?
The verb saldırmak (to attack) always requires its target to be in the dative case, which shows direction. So, you add the dative ending -(y)e to sürü, making it sürüye (literally 'towards the flock').
How does kapkaranlık get its meaning of 'pitch-black'?
This is an intensified adjective. To emphasize a word in Turkish, you often take its first syllable (ka- from karanlık), add a consonant like p, m, r, or s (here it is p), and attach it to the front. So, karanlık (dark) becomes kapkaranlık (completely dark, or pitch-black).
Why use gecelerde (on the nights) instead of just saying gece like we often do for 'at night'?
While gece can mean 'at night' as a general time expression, this sentence emphasizes a recurring habit on specific types of nights (pitch-black ones). Using the plural and the locative case (gece-ler-de, literally 'in the nights') highlights that this happened repeatedly over many dark nights.
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