Breakdown of Herkes bu şehrin çok çarpık olduğunu biliyor.
bu
this
çok
very
şehir
city
olmak
to be
bilmek
to know
herkes
everyone
çarpık
unplanned
Questions & Answers about Herkes bu şehrin çok çarpık olduğunu biliyor.
How does the 'that this city is...' part work in şehrin çok çarpık olduğunu?
In Turkish, to say 'that [something] is [adjective]', we use the verb olmak (to be) with the factive participle -dık / -dik. The subject of the clause (bu şehir) takes the genitive case (bu şehrin), and olmak takes the matching possessive ending (olduğu). So literally, the structure translates to 'this city's being very unplanned'.
Why is there an extra '-nu' at the end of olduğunu?
The base word for 'its being' is olduğu. But this entire clause acts as the direct object of the verb biliyor (knows). Because the verb bilmek requires the accusative case for specific direct objects, we add the accusative ending -u. The -n- is a buffer letter always used after 3rd person possessive endings, giving us olduğu-n-u.
Does çarpık always mean 'unplanned'?
Not exactly. Its literal meaning is 'crooked', 'distorted', or 'skewed'. However, in the context of cities and urbanization (such as the common phrase çarpık kentleşme), it is the standard Turkish way to describe a place that is 'unplanned', 'sprawling', or 'haphazardly built'.
Why is it spelled şehrin instead of şehirin?
Şehir is one of several two-syllable words in Turkish (often borrowed from Arabic, like vakit or isim) that drop the narrow vowel in their second syllable when a suffix starting with a vowel is added. So şehir + -in becomes şehrin.
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