Breakdown of Onlar kuliste tesadüfen karşılaşmış olmalı.
onlar
they
olmak
to be
karşılaşmak
to encounter
tesadüfen
by chance
kulis
backstage
Questions & Answers about Onlar kuliste tesadüfen karşılaşmış olmalı.
Why do we use -mış and olmalı together in karşılaşmış olmalı?
This combination is how you say "must have [done]" in Turkish. You use the inferential past suffix -mış on the main verb because you are making a logical deduction about a past event you didn't witness yourself. You then follow it with olmalı (must be). Literally, it translates to "it must be that they encountered."
How is the verb karşılaşmak formed? I recognize the word karşı.
You're right! Karşı means "opposite" or "across." The suffix -laş (or -leş) is a reciprocal suffix that turns nouns or adjectives into verbs where people do an action to each other. So, karşılaşmak literally means "to come opposite one another," which translates to "to encounter" or "to meet by chance."
What does the -en suffix on tesadüfen do?
Where does the word kulis come from?
Kulis means "backstage." It's a loanword from the French theater word coulisse. By adding the locative case suffix -te (because of consonant harmony), kuliste tells us where the action happened: "at/in the backstage."
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