Breakdown of Çorbaya avuç avuç kimyon ve tarçın koyuyor muydu?
ve
and
çorba
soup
koymak
to put
mi
question particle (mı/mi/mu/mü)
avuç
palm (of the hand)
tarçın
cinnamon
kimyon
cumin
Questions & Answers about Çorbaya avuç avuç kimyon ve tarçın koyuyor muydu?
What is the function of repeating avuç in avuç avuç?
This is an ikileme (reduplication). The word avuç means a handful. By repeating it, the sentence emphasizes that large, repeated quantities were used, translating to "handfuls of" or "by the handful". This is a common way in Turkish to express abundance or a repeated manner.
Why does the soup take the dative case (çorbaya) instead of the locative case (çorbada "in the soup")?
In Turkish, the verb koymak (to put) implies movement towards a destination. Even though in English we say "put in the soup", Turkish focuses on the direction the spices are traveling. This requires the dative case suffix -a (meaning "into" or "towards"), combined with the buffer letter -y- because çorba ends in a vowel.
Since avuç avuç implies a plural quantity, why aren't the spices pluralized?
In Turkish, whenever you use a quantity word or expression that implies "more than one" (including reduplications like avuç avuç or numbers like iki), the noun that follows it remains strictly in the singular form.
How is the verb koyuyor muydu constructed to mean "was he putting"?
This is the past continuous tense, formed by combining the present continuous suffix -uyor (is putting) with the past tense suffix -du (was). The question particle mu comes between them. Because mu ends in a vowel and the past suffix attaches to it, the buffer letter -y- is needed. So: koyuyor (is putting) + mu + -y- + -du = "was he putting?".
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