Breakdown of Bu toksik duman, çocukların öksürüğünü tetikler.
bu
this
çocuk
child
duman
smoke
öksürük
cough
toksik
toxic (scientific or metaphorical loanword)
tetiklemek
to trigger
Questions & Answers about Bu toksik duman, çocukların öksürüğünü tetikler.
The current lesson focuses on sebep olmak and yol açmak to express causation. Could we use those here instead of tetikler?
Yes! Tetiklemek (to trigger) is a direct verb that takes the accusative case (öksürüğünü). If you wanted to use the lesson's target grammar, you would change the noun "cough" into an action using the factive -mAsI structure and add the dative case: Bu toksik duman, çocukların öksürmesine sebep olur. (This toxic smoke causes the children to cough).
Let's break down öksürüğünü. Why are there two -ü endings here?
The base word is öksürük (cough). The first -ü is the third-person possessive suffix linked to çocukların (the children's cough), which causes the final -k to soften to -ğ. The second -ü is the accusative case marker, needed because the cough is the specific direct object being triggered. The -n- in the middle is a buffer letter, which is always required when attaching a case marker to a third-person possessive suffix.
Since çocukların is plural, why doesn't the sentence use the plural possessive öksürüklerini (their coughs)?
In Turkish, when a plural subject shares a general condition, state, or a single type of object, it is very common to use the singular possessive (here, öksürüğü). Saying öksürüklerini wouldn't be wrong, but the singular emphasizes the general condition of coughing rather than treating them as multiple individual, countable coughs.
How is the verb tetikler formed, and why is it in this specific tense?
The root is the noun tetik, which literally means the "trigger" of a gun. The suffix -le turns it into the verb tetiklemek (to trigger). It is conjugated here with the aorist tense suffix (-r -> tetikler), which is used to state general facts, characteristics, or timeless truths—meaning this specific smoke always or generally triggers a cough.
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