Breakdown of Kayaların arasında avlanmak giderek daha zor oluyordu.
zor
difficult
daha
more
olmak
to become
giderek
increasingly / gradually
arasında
between, among
kaya
rock
avlanmak
to hunt
Questions & Answers about Kayaların arasında avlanmak giderek daha zor oluyordu.
Why is avlanmak used here instead of avlamak?
Avlamak is a transitive verb, meaning it requires a direct object (like hunting a specific animal). When talking about the general, intransitive activity of hunting without a specific target, Turkish uses the reflexive form avlanmak.
How does giderek mean 'increasingly'? Doesn't it literally mean 'by going'?
Literally, yes; it combines gitmek (to go) with the adverbial suffix -erek (by doing). However, it has become a fixed adverb in Turkish meaning 'gradually' or 'increasingly' to describe a situation that develops continuously over time.
Why do we need the genitive suffix -ın on kayaların to say 'among the rocks'?
In Turkish, position words like ara (the space between) function as nouns. To say 'among the rocks', you literally say 'in the space-between of the rocks'. This requires a possessive noun compound: kayalar-ın ara-sı-nda (Genitive + Possessive + Locative).
Why use the past continuous oluyordu (was becoming) instead of a simple past tense?
Oluyordu emphasizes an ongoing, developing process in the past. If you used the simple past oldu, it would imply a sudden, completed change ('became'), which would contradict the gradual meaning of the word giderek.
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