Question 1

Why is the suffix -mış (as -ymış) attached to dolandırıcı? Doesn't that usually mean "hearsay"?

Accepted Answer

While -miş is often used for things you heard from someone else, its other major job is expressing discovery or realization—meaning "I just found out" or "it turns out." In this sentence, it pairs perfectly with meğer (which means "it turns out" or "apparently") to emphasize your surprise at discovering his true identity.

Question 2

The English translation says "I thought he was...", so why does the Turkish sentence start with Onu (him) instead of O (he)?

Accepted Answer

The verb sanmak (to suppose / to think) treats the person you are making an assumption about as its direct object. You are essentially saying "I supposed him [to be] a police officer." Because of this, the pronoun o must take the accusative case ending -nu, becoming onu.

Question 3

Why use the past continuous sanıyordum instead of the simple past sandım?

Accepted Answer

Using the past continuous sanıyordum shows that this was an ongoing, continuous belief you held for a period of time in the past (like "I was under the impression..."). If you used sandım, it would sound more like a sudden, momentary thought that just popped into your head.

Question 4

How is the word dolandırıcıymış built?

Accepted Answer

The root is the verb dolandırmak, which means "to scam" or "to defraud." The suffix -ıcı is added to verbs to create a noun meaning "the person who does this" (similar to "-er" in English), making dolandırıcı (scammer). Finally, because the word ends in a vowel, we add the buffer letter -y- before attaching the discovery suffix -mış, resulting in dolandırıcıymış.

Onu polis sanıyordum, meğer dolandırıcıymış.

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