Questions & Answers about Pusu kurmadığımız için avlanamazdık.
How does the ending of avlanamazdık give us the meaning 'we couldn't have hunted'?
Let's break it down: avlan (to hunt) + -a (inability marker) + -maz (aorist negative) + -dı (past tense) + -k (we). Combining the inability -a with the aorist past -mazdı creates a negative counterfactual past ability. It shows that an action would have been impossible under certain hypothetical or unfulfilled past conditions.
Could I use the standard past inability avlanamadık instead of the aorist avlanamazdık here?
They have slightly different meanings. Avlanamadık states a simple past fact: 'we couldn't hunt' (perhaps we went out and tried, but failed). Avlanamazdık acts as a conditional impossibility: 'we couldn't have hunted' (since we didn't set an ambush, the ability to hunt was fundamentally impossible from the start).
Wait, the noun for hunt is av. Why use avlanmak instead of avlamak here?
Avlamak usually means 'to hunt down a specific prey' and expects a direct object (like hunting a deer). Avlanmak adds the suffix -lan and is used as an intransitive verb meaning 'to go hunting' or 'to hunt in general'. Since no specific prey is mentioned in this sentence, avlanmak is the natural choice.
Why is the phrase for 'because we didn't set' formed as kurmadığımız için?
When expressing 'because an action happened' with a specific subject, Turkish uses the object participle -dIk plus a possessive suffix before için. Here we have kur (set) + -ma (negative) + -dık (participle) + -ımız (our). It literally translates to 'because of our not setting'.
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