Hello, I´m new to this site, as well as the Turkish language, so please forgive me if this is a known question or in the whong forum. I was reading a small book in Turkish, and I noticed these two verbs:

yaşıyorlardı

paylaşıyorlardı

Both verbs are present continuous tense (iyor), correct? Does the -di at the end of these make them past tense? If so, why would paylaştılar (not sure of vowel harmony and consonant mutation there) not be used?

Çok teşekkürler!

Yes, -di  makes them past, and with -iyor  it becomes past + continues ---> a certain action in the past WAS continuing. ---> PAST CONTINUOUS

yaşıyorlardı --> They were living

paylaşıyorlardı --->  They were sharing

As you know The past continuous tense in English is used quite often, especially when telling stories.

Because.

IYOR is not actually a present tense marking. Present tense has no marking. So what makes çalışıyor present tense is lack of any tense marking. What IYOR brings to the verb is the meaning of a continuous action. So, çalış+ıyor+du ´he was (continuously) working´.

For didactive reasons in textbooks IYOR is often connected with present tense. It works for a while but very soon contradictions like this occur.

This link has all the endings for past continous, near the bottom:

http://www.turkishlanguage.co.uk/pasttense.htm

Yes, you have to worry about vowel harmony. But with this tense it will be the same for every verb, because of the ´iyor´ (or iyorlar).