Yes! Very smart thinking. The same way

                          yapmadan önce

                          yaptıktan sonra

don´t you think?

The border is relatively clear but there are cases where both MA and DIK go as ikicihan cleared before. Actually this is logical too: the infinite system reflects a continuum between pure undefined action (abstract action which only exists in the world of ideas) and a reported (real) action.

Not the most difficult thing in Turkish syntax anyway in my opinion.

Here it is. The action with MA did not actually happen, the action with DIK did/does. Verbal nouns (infinitives) represent the pure undefined action while the participle marking is a means of grammatical hypotaxis and the action it denotes is described in that particular speech act as something that has really taken place. Actually they are two very different things when you come to think of it.

In verb queues MA usually brings the meaning of manipulation: olmamı istiyor is a wish, an obligation, an order depending on the context. The difference shows best if we use a very neutral verb as the head of that phrase:

                 Mahmut´un gel|diğ|ini söyledim ´I said Mahmut comes/has come/had come´.

                 Mahmut´un gel|me|sini söyledim ´I said Mahmut should come´.

Correct me if I am wrong.

Explaining the use of ki is difficult. Many have tried. If you use the search box you will find plenty of good texts about it. In my opinion it is one of the things you learn perfectly only using your ear, i.e. listen a lot, read a lot and little by little your musical ear begins to catch the place of ki.

A long time ago I picked up a few sentences from a translation thread (they were produced by gokuyum and tunci as I remember). I translated them to my own native language in my mind and I think it helped me. You see, you often see ki together with öyle and I think this is one of its basic functions: it acts like a bridge from the circumstances to the results.

Şunu kesinlikle bilmiyorum ki, seni görmeden bu uzun kışın üstesinden nasıl geleceğim.

Seni görmeden bu uzun kışın üstesinden nasıl geleceğim ki bunu kesinlikle bilemiyorum.

Öyle ki, seni görmeden bu uzun kışın üstesinden nasıl geleceğim bunu kesinlikle bilmiyorum.

Burada öyle uzun bir kış var ki üstesinden seni görmeden nasıl gelebileceğimi kesinlikle bilmiyorum.

Fikret Kızılok, Yeter ki

Vocabulary structure tells a lot about the culture where the language is spoken. Eskimos have so many names for ´snow´ just like Arabic is rich with ´camel´ names. It seems that kinship terms are the horn of plenty for Turkish. Personally I feel confused looking at these lists: they are difficult to memorize because they have no meaning to me. I hardly know who my yenge or elti is and even if I did I would just call them by their names.

aşk dileği

So far so good. Thanks, AlphaF, thanks tunci.

Girls, you are mixing it =O ...anyway:

                                oyun yazarı

defter kabı

AlphaF you are really good at this. It is often the non-linguistic context that makes the difference.

In this example it seems like daha expresses a positive expectation while hala is something like "it has been too long".

What about the mother, how would her question look like at 2.45 and 3.15?

                              Doktor daha/hala gelmedi mi?

Does it show in her question whether she expects a yes or a no for the answer?