Word
Nehir ilkbaharda coşkun akar ama yazın durgun olur.
Meaning
The river flows exuberantly in spring, but it becomes still in summer.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Nehir ilkbaharda coşkun akar ama yazın durgun olur.
ama
but
olmak
to become
nehir
river
akmak
to flow
Questions & Answers about Nehir ilkbaharda coşkun akar ama yazın durgun olur.
How do the suffixes in coşkun and durgun change the meaning of their root verbs?
The suffix -gIn (and its variants like -kun or -gun) creates an adjective that describes a continuous state resulting from a verb. Coşkun comes from coşmak (to be exuberant, to overflow), meaning 'exuberant' or 'raging.' Durgun comes from durmak (to stop, to stay), meaning 'still' or 'stagnant.' Notice how the suffix adapts to both vowel harmony and consonant mutation rules: ş is unvoiced, so it takes -kun, while r is voiced, taking -gun.
Why is the adjective coşkun modifying the verb akar? Shouldn't it be an adverb?
In Turkish, many adjectives can be used directly as adverbs without needing a special suffix (the way English adds '-ly'). Here, coşkun functions perfectly as an adverb describing exactly how the river flows (akar).
Why does 'in spring' use the locative case (ilkbaharda) but 'in summer' uses the -ın suffix (yazın)?
Seasons have slightly different adverbial forms to express 'in' a season. For spring and autumn, Turkish normally uses the standard locative case (ilkbaharda, sonbaharda). However, for summer and winter, it uses an old instrumental suffix -ın / -in, giving us yazın (in summer) and kışın (in winter).