Such as ...

Cases which would specify if the object is over the box or in it or just in close contact with it, cases which show that while looking for something in the wardrobe you are not in the wardrobe yourself...these are important things to define.

Seriously, what has made my mind busy recently is the obvious contradiction that many languages with a good amount of prepositions have as much grammatical cases as Turkish. For instance Russian which as an Indoeuropean language makes full use of prepositions has the same amount of cases as Turkish has. There has been talk about the ambiguity of Turkish sentences when separated from their context here sometimes. Maybe this is one of the reasons.

I guess we´re doing OK with what we have now. This is the outcome of so many centuries.

If we need to be more specific we say

over the box = kutunun üzerinde

in the box = kutunun içinde

And if the context makes it clear we just say:

kutuda

For others we describe:

in close contact with the box = kutunun çok yakınında

etc

Postpositions in Turkish or prepositions in IE languages (adpostions) have parallels.

I guess our case suffixes once were postpositions as well. They just turned into suffixes over time.

Look at this example:

Da Roma a İstanbul (Italian)

Roma´dan İstanbul´a (Turkish)

Certainly. I think Turkish represents great economy compared with preposition languages and even among agglutinative languages. But the system is in constant, slow move as you said.

"Many left Maurras, and few returned when, in 1939, Pius XII lifted the interdict."

Can one use the Turkish çok and az independently the same way as many and few above? If the answer is yes, do they take their predicate in sg or pl?

 You can absolutely..

 " Birçoğu [Birçokları] Maurras´ı terk etti ve birazı [birkaçı] ........    "

Birçok = many

Birçok + u --> many of them

Biraz + ı  ---> few of them

as you see we can say they are used independently as we dont have to mention "person" when we say birçoğu or birkaçı [birazı] if the context already known.

Other examples ;

Birazını sakla ya da dolaba koy. ---> Keep few of it [them--> depends on the context ] or put it [them] into the fridge.

Birkaçı bana sordu ---> Few of them asked me

[Onlardan birkaçı = few of them]

[ Adamlardan birkaçı ---> Few of men ]

Another example ;

Geçmişte birçok Rum mübadele yoluyla köylerini terk etmek zorunda kaldı.

Geçmişte birçoğu mübadele yoluyla köylerini terk etmek zorunda kaldı

Here as we already know the context then we are free to use it independently without mentioning the "person" .

birçok Rum = many greeks

birçoğu = many of them

Birçokları bana inanmaz ---> Many [people] dont believe me.

[Birçoğu]

Çok azı bana inanır ---> Quite few [people] belive me.

 [Birazı]  -----> Few belive me.

 [Birkaçı] ----> Few believe me.

---- Yumurtadan yeni çıkan kaplumbağaların birçoğu denize ulaşamaz.

       Yumurtadan yeni  çıkanların birçoğu denize ulaşamaz.                                  

tunci,

I know you become irritated when I correct you, but I have to do it here.

"Biraz" cannot be used for countable things ("birkaç" is used for that purpose). So

Birazı = few of them is not OK

"Birazı" means some of it.

"Birkaçı" means some/few of them.

 Si ++ ,

You are wrong by thinking I become irritated when you correct me. I really appreciate your correction as long as it[correction] is made in a good manner. As your manner is good here I say thank you for that.

when it comes to "biraz" issue, I know biraz is used for uncountable things. Yes I was in dilemma to put "some" or "few" for that sentence. But in Turkish we sometimes use biraz for countable things too such as ;

Biraz elma al ---> Buy some apples

I am gonna buy few apples ---> Birkaç [tane] elma alacağım.

BUT in the sentence above we can say " Biraz elma alacağım " . What I am trying to say is that in Turkish this rule is not strict as english.

If I mean a few apples , we can also say " biraz " along " birkaç"

As you know in cases like this Turkish is more flexible in practice.

The difference between a few and few, if we talk about countables, what is is then?