Learn Turkish: Proje bitmiş, mühendisler dün gece sabahlamış olmalı. - The project is finished; the engineers must have stayed up all night last night.

Proje bitmiş, mühendisler dün gece sabahlamış olmalı.

The project is finished; the engineers must have stayed up all night last night.

Breakdown of Proje bitmiş, mühendisler dün gece sabahlamış olmalı.

Questions & Answers about Proje bitmiş, mühendisler dün gece sabahlamış olmalı.

How does sabahlamış olmalı translate to "must have stayed up"?

This uses the grammar from our current lesson. We take the verb with the inferential past ending -mış and add olmalı (must be). Together, -mış olmalı expresses a strong logical deduction about the past, meaning "must have done".

Is the word sabah (morning) being used as a verb in sabahlamış?

Yes! By adding the suffix -la, the noun sabah becomes the verb sabahlamak, which means "to stay awake until morning" or "to pull an all-nighter".

Why is bitmiş used instead of bitti for "The project is finished"?

While bitti (simple past) would just state the direct fact "it finished", using the inferential past -miş shows the speaker is observing the result. It perfectly sets up the deduction: "I see the project is finished, therefore they must have..."

Could I use sabahlamalıydı instead of sabahlamış olmalı here?

No, because they mean very different things. sabahlamış olmalı is a deduction meaning "they must have stayed up" (I assume they did). sabahlamalıydı uses the past necessity tense to mean "they should have stayed up" (but they didn't).