Learn Turkish: Geceye doğru patika bitti ve bir çıkmaza girdik. - Towards night, the path ended and we entered a dead end.

Geceye doğru patika bitti ve bir çıkmaza girdik.

Towards night, the path ended and we entered a dead end.

Breakdown of Geceye doğru patika bitti ve bir çıkmaza girdik.

Questions & Answers about Geceye doğru patika bitti ve bir çıkmaza girdik.

Does -e doğru only work for physical directions like "towards the house"?

Not at all! Just like in English, -e doğru can be used for time to mean "towards" or "around" a certain point in time. Here, geceye doğru means "towards night" or "as night was approaching". Notice that gece ends in a vowel, so it needs the buffer letter y before the dative ending -e.

Why is it geceye doğru and not just gece doğru?

When doğru is used as a postposition meaning "towards", it always requires the preceding word to be in the dative case (the -e or -a ending). Without the dative ending, doğru acts as an adjective or adverb meaning "correct" or "straight" (for example, doğru cevap means "correct answer").

The word çıkmaz looks like a negative verb. How does it mean "dead end"?

Great observation! It comes from the verb çıkmak (to go out / to exit). The -maz suffix is the negative aorist (broad time) ending. In Turkish, aorist endings are frequently used to turn verbs into permanent adjectives or nouns. So, a çıkmaz is literally a place that "does not exit", which perfectly describes a dead end or an impasse.

Why is there an -a on the end of çıkmaza?