ELONIO
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Derince bir akvaryum aldık.

Derince bir akvaryum aldık.
We bought a rather deep aquarium.
From Lesson 288:Adjective softening (-ce / -ça)·Turkish

Breakdown of Derince bir akvaryum aldık.

bir
a / an
almak
to take, to buy
derin
deep
akvaryum
aquarium

Questions & Answers about Derince bir akvaryum aldık.

How does the -ce suffix change the meaning of derin here?
Derin means deep. Adding the softening suffix -ce changes it to 'rather deep', 'fairly deep', or 'deep-ish'. It acts as an approximation, making the adjective a bit less intense or exact, but showing it has a noticeable amount of depth.
Why is the suffix -ce instead of -ca, -çe, or -ça?
The suffix follows 2-way vowel harmony and consonant mutation rules. The last vowel in derin is i (a front vowel), so the suffix takes an e. The word ends in n, which is a voiced consonant, so the suffix starts with a soft c instead of a hard ç. Therefore, it becomes derince.
Why is bir placed after derince instead of before it?
In Turkish, when an adjective describes a noun that uses the indefinite article bir (a/an), the strict word order is Adjective + bir + Noun. So it must be derince bir akvaryum (literally: rather-deep an aquarium).
Wait, doesn't the -ce suffix usually create adverbs?
It can do both! While derince acts as an adjective here because it describes the noun akvaryum, the -ce / -ca suffix is also frequently used to turn adjectives into adverbs that describe verbs. For example, güzel means beautiful, but güzelce means beautifully or nicely when modifying an action.

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