Breakdown of İthal ürünü pahalı olduğundan değil, yerli ürün daha kaliteli olduğundan almadık.
değil
not
pahalı
expensive
almak
to take, to buy
olmak
to be
kaliteli
high-quality
daha
more
ürün
product
ithal
imported
yerli
domestic
Questions & Answers about İthal ürünü pahalı olduğundan değil, yerli ürün daha kaliteli olduğundan almadık.
How does the "not because X, but because Y" structure work here?
This lesson's target structure is formed by using the ablative case (-dan / -den) on a verbal noun clause (like olduğundan, meaning "from/because of its being") followed by değil. To create the contrast, you state the rejected reason with pahalı olduğundan değil ("not because it was expensive"), use a comma, and follow it with the actual reason: yerli ürün daha kaliteli olduğundan ("because the domestic product was of higher quality").
Why does İthal ürünü have the -ü suffix, while yerli ürün does not?
They play different grammatical roles in the sentence. İthal ürünü is the specific direct object of the main verb almadık ("We didn't buy the imported product"), so it takes the accusative case suffix -ü. On the other hand, yerli ürün acts as the subject of the second causal clause ("because the domestic product was of higher quality"), so it does not take the accusative marker.
In formal grammar, don't the subjects of -dIk clauses take the genitive case? Why isn't it yerli ürünün?
You are correct that formally, the subject of a -dIk clause usually takes the genitive case, which would make it yerli ürünün daha kaliteli olduğundan. However, in everyday Turkish, the genitive suffix is frequently dropped when the subject represents a general category rather than a highly specific item, or simply to make a complex sentence flow more smoothly.
How do we know to translate olduğundan as "because it was" rather than "because it is"?
The suffix -dIk (seen here inside olduğundan) is a non-future participle that covers both present and past situations; it doesn't carry a specific tense of its own. Instead, it takes its time reference from the main verb of the sentence. Since the main verb almadık ("we didn't buy") is in the past tense, the states described by olduğundan are naturally understood to be in the past as well.
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