I was going to ask what is the difference between biri and birisi but I found it somewhere else. So I´m not asking.

Don´t keep it to yourself. Share what you have found with us.

Most of the indefinite, deternative and negative pronouns are formed by adding a third person suffix to an adjective. Thus bir ‘a, one’ is an adjective (bir adam gitti) but biri is a pronoun (adamlardan biri gitti, biri kaldı ´one of the men left, one stayed´. In bir-i-si the possessive suffix is doubled. Biri and birisi may also mean ‘someone’.

Where the 3^rd person possessive suffix refers is an interesting question and in my opinion a typical feature in Turkish language. When there is no obvious correlate the suffix refers to people at large, a ‘they’ as a vague, the idea of people.

According to the earlier threads on this site natives do not clearly agree if there is a difference in meaning between biri and birisi. Someone says the second suffix makes the pronoun more formal, refers to the speaker’s and the listener’s common knowledge. Both biri and birisi can be used for people but birisi more likely refers to a person. Birisi cannot take the plural suffix –ler.

If I was asked (of course I am not asked) all this fuzziness refers to one thing: birisi has developed accidentally on the basis of analogy. (It is against morphological principles, it has a defective paradigm and it doesn’t answer a certain need in language but rather competes of living space with a pronoun which is almost alike.)

There are excercises on determinative, negative and indefinite pronouns in Beginner 2 Class in this website. Much too early. I remember trying to fill the gaps a year ago, and it was mostly guessing. At that time, I just gave up and left the issue. I thought returning to these questions later would open the lock somehow. It´s not enough to know what a certain pronoun root means, you also have to know something about possessive suffixes, compounds and sentence structure in general, because these pronouns often adapt grammatically to their surroundings.

(I looked at the same test again a couple of days ago and knew what to choose this time. Well, almost...)

One of the mysterious pronouns was hep- and all that goes under it.

Hep as and adverb means ´always, entirely´: Köpeğimiz hep ayak altında ´Our dog is always underfoot´, Reklam panolarında hep kırmızı renk kullanılmış ´In the advertisement panels entirely red colour was used´. Hep becomes a pronoun when personal suffixes are added into it: hepimiz ’all of us’, hepiniz ’all of you’. As a pronoun we can conjugate it as we like: Hepimizin varlık sepebi annelerimiz ‘The reason for all of us to exist is our mothers’, Hepinize çok teşekkür ediyorum ‘Thank you so much to all of you.’

The 3^rd person sg is hepsi. To be accurate, the possessive suffix is doubled in hepsi also, but the first -i- has been lost on the road: *hep-i-si. We usually see it as the second half of a compound: Ankara’ya giden otobüslerin hepsi dolu ‘All the buses that were going to Ankara were full’, Bunların hepsi benim ‘All of these are mine’, Bu kazaların hepsi Ankara’da oldu ‘All these accidents happened in Ankara’. It also happens that the other part of the compound is not visible and the possessive suffix refers to something that the listener is supposed to understand Hepsi güzel ‘All (of them) are beautiful’. In an old translation request I found ben sadece eski bir dostu özledim hepsi o ‘I just missed an old friend, that’s all (of it).’  I googled hepsi and got a hundred pages of hits about a famous R&B girl band whose name maybe should be translated ‘all of it/them’.

The reader must wonder by now what this woman is doing. Nothing. I’m just thinking to myself. Maybe writing down what I found out would be beneficial for other learners, too. (I got the idea from si++’s comment.) Of course I hope one of the learned members bothered to correct my mistakes.

You´re doing good. Kind of your own blogging here.

As for hepsi, it has plural meaning when it refers to countable things:

hepimiz = all of us

hepiniz = al of you

hepsi = all of them

And it means "all of it" when it refers to uncountable things.

So we don´t say something like "hepsileri" that would be 3 possessive suffixes one after another. We would have "hepileri" if it was necessary, which we don´t.

Strangely google returns some results for "hepsileri" but I guess that is related to that music group.

My acquaintance with kendi has been a difficult one. This is probably because its deceptive similarity with the English reflexive myself, yourself, himself… As soon as the learner falls asleep strange uses of kendi pop up from various texts and she realizes there are still a few eureka moments to come before this flexible pronoun is under control.

The first moment is there when you notice that there is an adjective kendi and a pronominal kendi which is the case with so many Turkish pronouns. Aha, that’s why you so often see it unconjugated. The adjective kendi simply means ‘own’. It takes the role of an attribute like any other adjective, but I don’t think you can ever see it as a predicative. That’s because it doesn’t carry an independent meaning. As an adjective it doesn’t show who the owner is, that is done by genitive case + possessive suffixes in the governing noun, kendi just stresses the quality of its main word as being someone’s own.

As soon as a possessive suffix is fixed to kendi we are talking about pronouns. The learner must notice that the form kend|i is already possessed by 3^rd person singular and even though you feel like adding another suffix –si to the end it’s not necessary (but not wrong either, I guess). Respectively, as kendi is already seen as a derived form it takes the pronominal –n- between the possessive suffix and the case ending.

But we are not done yet. As a reflexive pronoun, kendi conjugates perfectly in person and case. Bu hata kendimin. ‘This is a mistake that I made myself/my own mistake.’ Neden kendinizi bu kadar üzüyorsunuz? ‘Why do you get so upset yourself?” There is also an adverb derived from the same stem kendimce, kendince… ‘in one’s (own) opinion’.

kendi is often used as an emphatic pronoun. What gives it special strength is reduplication of the stem: Çocuk kendi kendini yıkamadı ‘The child washed himself (with his own hand)’. We must notice that this structure only works when there is a case ending in the second part of it: *kendi kendim is not a valid form for ‘myself’. Sometimes a dative form is used in places where you might expext nominative: Bu aptal kararı kendi kendine verdin ‘You made this stupid decision on your own’, Adaya kendi kendime yüzdüm ‘I in my own person swam to the island’. In these cases the translation might be ‘for one’s own account, personally’. Of course kendi- can be used alone, too, but then you don’t need a dative ending: Adaya kendim yüzdüm.

Sometimes it seems to me that kendi is used as a grammatical hanger, a quiet servant to the sentence structure. If you have extra suffixes in your hands and don’t know where to put them, kendi may come to help. Neden kendisinden korkuyorsun? ‘What are you afraid of?’ sounds odd in the learner’s ear: yes, we got used to seeing ablative ending close to korkmak but normally fixed to the stem which refers to the thing one is afraid of. But it seems that kendi- can make itself small enough to carry the ending without causing trouble in understanding.

Maybe this is the reason why the whole meaning of kendi- is difficult to catch. In some cases it can strongly emphasize a sentence constituent and in other cases it can hardly be seen.

A small question:

İki/çok kız okula gitti

isn’t it?

But

(Kızların) ikisi/çoğu okula gitti OR gittiler?

hi Abla! I have missed reading your topics lately for trying to focus on my pre Algebra class work, as this is the 2nd time taking that and I don´t want to have to do it again  Ive only been able to work a little bit of Turkish during lunches to keep from forgetting.

I am not yet knowledged in the ways that  -kendi is used and I have been wanting to learn that too. Thank you for the good information you posted! I hear it all the time when I listen to spoken Turkish and I know it has to do with the the "self" like how its used in the phrase "kendine iyi bak" though I know what that means. I have also heard what sounds like "kendi kendine" ?  But I can´t figure out what it is repeated like that.

edit; btw, Abla I often get good notes from your topics actually. I think its because you ask very good questions. I sort of combine what you write and what the native Turkish speakers do to to correct, or add any information. And I actually write down notes because I don´t have any true Text books. So I am glad you started this and other topics 

Hello, sweet Mavili. I noticed you have been absent. I hope you succeed in your studies.

Don´t take this thread as a lesson. It´s mostly a description of my own working on a certain subject. For sure you can find many better lessons on kendi and other pronouns. But to be honest, I myself never found the perfect description, and that´s why I am trying to collect my information from many sources. I have asked TC teachers to look through my text to avoid the worst handicaps but it´s still a learner´s text and should be taken as one.

In addition to its normal reflexive function like myself, yourself etc. in English it is also used for emphasis and this is one thing that confuses the learner sometimes. You see, it´s like the English reflexive and still there is something more to it.

There are two kinds of negation: sentence negation and constituent negation. At first sight it seemed to me that Turkish negative pronouns make the constituent negation while negating suffix –me- added to the predicate verb negates the whole sentence.

No. Nothing of the kind. Turkish negative pronouns always work together with the sentence negation and support it. There are other ways in the syntax to negate a single constituent.

The Persian origin hiç is the basis of Turkish negative pronouns. As an independent lexeme it is an indefinite pronoun with the meaning ‘nothing’ or ‘never’: Ne yaptın? Hiç. ‘What did you do? Nothing.’  Ankara’da hiç bulunmadım. ‘I never went to Ankara’.

In the Turkish translation of the famous tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes” the child in the middle of the crowd makes the crucial remark: Kral elbiselerini hiç giymemiş! ‘The King did’t put on any clothes at all!’ This represents the other important role of hiç as an emphatic particle which works as well on its own and fixed with indefinite pronouns bir- and kimse-: Hiçbirimiz kaderimizi seçmiyoruz. ‘None of us chooses his destiny’, Bildiğim tek şey hiçbir şey bilmediğimdir ‘The only thing I know is that I know nothing’, Hiç kimse kaderinden kaçamaz ‘No one escapes from his destiny.’

In world languages negative indefinite articles may or may not occur together with the predicate negation. In standard English, you can’t put nothing, never or no one with not in the same sentence. In Turkish, just like in Russian and as the matter of fact (according to linguists) in most languages there is no objection to this. Both hiç and its many combinations are in perfect harmony with predicate negation –me-. In most cases, hiç requires a negative form of the predicate which also shows that hiç is not necessarily needed to make the sentence negative and its many compounds basically have an emphatic meaning. The only exception is questions, where hiç can translate ‘ever’ while the predicate is affirmative: Hiç uçağa bindin mi? ‘Did you ever travel by plane?’ Maybe the negative pronoun in this case gives the listener a chance to say no without losing his face.

It seems that this rule doesn’t work to the opposite direction: a negative predicate can also have a positive pronoun as its subject, like in Böyle birşey hayatında görmedin ‘This shows that you didn’t see anything in your life’ and Devamlı çığlık attım ama kimse gelmedi ‘I screamed and screamed but no one came.’ It’s interesting to try to figure out how the meaning of these sentences would change if there was a hiç present in the form of hiçbir şey or hiç kimse. My bet is that with hiç the negation would be actually weaker (according to the same logics that makes Thank you!!!!!!!! less than Thank you) but this is actually a question for a native speaker to think of.

Hangi

- Like the English which, hangi offers the choice from a certain group which is a logical category in our mind (Hangi renk?) or a group defined in the textual or the non-textual context (Hangi kız daha güzel?).

- Hangi, even though it has a special character as a question word, is still an adjective and should be treated as one. It takes the syntactic role of an attribute. It doesn’t conjugate.

- When equipped with a possessive suffix hangi changes into a pronoun: hangimiz ‘which of us’. No need to say once the possessive suffix is present other endings can be added to hangi as well because it is no longer an adjective. The possessive suffix stresses the “one of the group” meaning which actually already exists in the basic meaning of the adjective hangi. We might ask what is the difference between hangi ülke and ülkelerin hangisi, because both of them denote choosing from a group. A simple Google search brings into light that usually before ülkelerin hangisi there is a modifier which narrows the group we are choosing from: not from among all countries but Avrupa ülkelerinden hangisi, bu/aşağıdaki ülkelerden hangisi.

Two questions about hangi for those who know better:

1. What is the neutral position of hangi in word queues where there are more adjective attributes than just hangi?

         büyuk bahçesi olan beyaz ev

If you want to ask ‘which white house with the big garden’ can you just drop hangi in the above sentence in some place or do you need to change it into a pronoun structure like

         büyük bahçesi olan beyaz evlerin hangisi?

2. Is it true as it seems to me that when hangi comes the indefinite article bir goes? I only find occurances of bir with herhangi. Can you say

         *Hangi bir erkek?

Ok, thanks, si++.

Tüm Oyunlar, Bütün Oyunlar, Oyunların hepsi is the headline of a Turkish children’s game site. A learner cannot see the small nuances but it seems to me that one and the same thing is said in three different ways. The language is oversupplied with expressions of ‘all’. It is one of the meanings of both tüm, bütün and hep-.

There used to be two words for ‘whole’ in Turkish, the homemade bütün and the Arabic origin tüm. The use of tüm was narrower while bütün when qualifying a plural noun also ment ‘all’. As a result of some kind of misunderstanding language reformers strongly recommended the same usage for tüm and succeeded. In local dialects tüm can still be restricted to the meaning ‘whole’. Both tüm Türkiye and bütün Türkiye have thousands of occurances in Google meaning ‘the whole Turkey’. I wonder if their colour is the same or if one of them sounds more archaic or rural than the other.

The syntactic roles of bütün and tüm differ slightly. While bütün is a noun and adjective (bütün millet or milletin bütünü ‘the whole nation&rsquo tüm is more like an adverb (tüm cahil ‘completely ignorant&rsquo.

In modern language both bütün and tüm are used with plural nouns with the pronominal meaning ‘all’: Alkol tüm kötülüklerin babasıdır. ‘Alcohol is the origin of all troubles’, Bütün yatırımcıların amacı, olabildiğince az risk alarak kar elde etmektir ‘Every investor’s aim is to make profit taking as small a risk as possible’. In possessive constructions bütün and tüm usually mean ‘whole’ but some cases of ‘all’ can be found. The occurances I found concern faceless groups of people like schoolers and soldiers: Hoca çocukların tümüne olumlu cevap vermiş:…, İrak’taki Amerikali askerlerinin tümü çekiliyor.

Tüm´s origin is disputed. Once I read an article about its origin. That article claimed that tüm is a Turkish loan in Arabic (tamam is derived from tümm).

We (Turks) and Mongols have some derivatives related to tüm.

It´s belived that there was a tü-* root in old Turkish. We have some derivatives:

tü-m

tü-k (seen in tü-k-e-t-mek and tü-k-e-n-mek both from tü-k-e-mek = increase, spread)

tü-gemel (in Mongol tüm, tamam, genel, yaygın)

Interesting. The Arabic input in Turkish vocabulary is so massive it wouldn´t be any wonder if it was exaggerated also in some details. One day while I was listening to an Arabic song it came to my mind that most of its words could be found in Turkish dictionary also, at least as the second alternative for certain meanings. It has made my learning easier, of course, but for some reason if I have the chance to choose between the original Turkish word and the Arabic loan I prefer the former even though they are both as foreign in my ears. It is just that loan words  -  even if they are a normal consequence of cultural contacts  -  are degeneration of language also if at a certain period of time they come in from doors and windows.

Thank you for taking a look at my text again, si++.

I just wanted to share my knowledge about kendi .. 

So kind of you, scalpel. With your additions my text finally gains some information value.

The wide use of Turkish dative has paid my attention in many occasions, with the pronoun kendi as well. (My opinion is you should have more grammatical cases in your language...)

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?

Partiye az kişi geldi ---> Few people came to the party.

Birkaçı partiden erken ayrıldı ---> Afew of them left the party early

Partiye çok kişi geldi ---> Many people came to the party.

Different between a few and few

They both are used with countable noun.

Few, when used without a preceding a, means "very few" or "none at all". On the other hand, a few is used to indicate "not a large number". The difference is subtle, yet there are instances where the two can mean completely opposite things.

I have a few objections to the vendor´s proposed approach. implies that I am not on board with the vendor´s proposal. I have some objections, but not so many as to say "I have several objections...". Nevertheless, I have objections that need to be addressed.

I have a few objections = birkaç itirazım var

I have few objections to the vendor´s proposed approach. is a more positive statement that implies I am more or less on board with the proposal. It is not a whole-hearted endorsement, but I barely have any objections at all.

I have few objections = çok az itirazım var

-I have a few apples. This means that 2 or 3 apples is enough for me.
-I have few apples. This means that 2 or 3 apples that I have is not still enough, I still need more.

I don´t think we have the above nuance of "few" and "a few" in Turkish. Just a little bit of approximation like this:

I have a few apples = birkaç elmam var. (countable)

I have few apples = çok az elmam var.

Biraz elmam var = I have some (of an) apple (uncountable)

Çok az elmam var = I have a little of an apple (uncountable)

Thanks, tunci, si++. You are so full of knowledge it bubbles out of you. You just need more challenging learners here.

Do you remember, there was a short discussion about a similar matter here a few months ago: a member wanted to know how to express ‘too big’, ‘too much’ in the opposition with ‘very big’, ‘very much’. Only çok was mentioned in the beginning (it is a word with a huge meaning), later aşırı and fazla with some reservations. Anyway, it seemed that ‘too’ and ‘very’ is not a very central opposition in Turkish.

I am fond of pronouns in every language. Just a few pawns to play with, not much to remember but a huge world of meanings. If you learn them well you can give listeners the impression you really master the language. And if you don’t you just end up in troubles in your first sentence because they are so frequent in speech. What is special about Turkish pronouns is the use of possessive suffixes in them. Just like they have both indefinite and definite meanings.

Possessive suffixes are very handy/practical in Turkish. Every learner should master that subject.

The ownership suffix seems easy, if I could confirm the need to put the -n to possesive suffix, affixed to nouns already ending in a vowel, when its a compound possesive? 

Mavili´nin gözü. Kedinin oyuncası.

Genitive seems easy but it can get too complicated. A great deal of Turkish grammar is based on this easy seeming construction (genitive and possessive all together).

Your examples are " belirtili isim tamlamasi" [determined noun phrase].

The genitive suffix seems easy, if I could confirm the need to put the -n to genitive suffix, affixed to nouns already ending in a vowel, when its a compound possesive? 

Mavili´nin gözü. Kedinin oyuncağı.

Mavili --> Noun

Mavili + n [ this "n" is buffer because the noun ends with vowel ] + in [genitive suffix]

So it is all to do with "buffer business" , between the modifier [Mavili ] and genitive suffix [in]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note ! :

Okul  kitap + ı [possesive "its]]

-------------------------------------------

Benim okul kitabım

my  school book

   kitap  + ım [possesive "my"]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note ! ;

Modifiers can give information about what the head word is made of. In this type of Noun phrases, modifier is a nominative noun with certain meanings and the head word is a noun with any possessive and case marker.

Altın  Saat

Gold  watch

-------------------------------------------------

Tahta Kapı

wooden door

-------------------------------------------------

Demir para

iron [metal] money

-----------------------------------------------------

I am curious where did you get that translation for it from?

 Surely you must know what " belirtili isim tamlaması " means.

when it comes to that translation , it´s equivalent in english ,  I myself translated it as "determined noun phrase " but you can say " defined noun phrase" or "defined noun clause ".....

Belirtili isim tamlaması is a Turkish grammar term. OK. But trying a literal translation by yourself is problematic and does not produce a good naming for English speakers.

First of all "isim tamlaması" can be translated as "compound noun" then if we want to bring the "belirtili" into it I would choose "determinative" for example.

Determinative compound noun

OK then out of curiosity I tried to google it. And indeed there is such a term in English.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_noun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_compound

 If you read further down in your second link   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_compound

you would see, it says ;  Most English compound nouns are noun phrases (= nominal phrases) that include a noun modified by adjectives or attributive nouns.

 which means, the "compound nouns" is a general name whereas "Noun phrases " is more specific definition in which "Mavili"´s examples are classified as "Noun phrases" in my opinion.

which means, the "compound nouns" is a general name whereas "Noun phrases " is more specific definition

I wouldn´t  think so.

When you say "X is Y", Y would be more general term (X would be a subset of Y or Y would be a superset of X)

Cats are animals (Or a cat is an animal). (Means cats set is a subset of animals set or Animals set is a superset of cats set)

So here noun phrase would be a general term (superset) and compound noun is a subset of it (hence speicific).

For example:

"Yolun sonundaki bakkal dükkanı" would be a noun phrase. Now would you call it isim tamlaması?

Whereas

"Youn sonu" is called "belirtili isim tamlaması" and "bakkal dükkanı" is called "belirtisiz isim tamlaması".

As you know "compound" in english means "Anything made by combining several things ",

"anything" gives us clue about it´s quality of being general.

http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/nouncompound.htm

A compound noun is a noun that is made up of two or more words. Most compound nouns in English are formed by nouns modified by other nouns or adjectives.

so it tells us that compound noun has subsets which are ;

1. İsim tamlaması ---> Noun phrase [clause]

   isim + isim [ Noun + Noun ]

  1.a - Belirtili isim tamlaması ---> Defined noun phrase

          Ali´nin kitabı ---> Ali´s book

  1.b-  Belirtisiz isim tamlaması --> Undefined noun phrase

          Diş fırçası ---> Tooth paste [in here the modifier is nominative]

  1.c-  Takısız isim tamlaması ---> Nominative noun phrase

         Yumuşak saç ---> Soft hair [in here both modifier and modified noun is nominative]

  1.d -  Zincirleme isim tamlaması ---> Noun phrase that has more than 1 noun phrase in it. In other words two or more noun phrase structure in one.

     Evin mutfak dolabı ---> 1. Evin mutfak dolabı ---> The kitchen cabinet of the house.

                                       2. Mutfak dolabı  ---> Kitchen cabinet.

                                       As we see there are two noun phrases in one form above.

2. Sıfat tamlaması ----> Adjective phrase [clause]

    2.a - Sıfat + isim [ Adjective + Noun]

          Adjective phrase is formed by an adjective comes first and then noun comes after it.         

          Büyük  insan ---> Great man [Big man]

          Küçük masa ---> Small table

          Üç elma ---> Three apples

          O adam  ---> That man

tunci,

Why is that lengthy stuff? Are you trying to trying to justify the following claim of yours?

which means, the "compound nouns" is a general name whereas "Noun phrases " is more specific definition

 Si ++,

I made my point with that lenghty stuff. As you see there are four types of  subset noun clauses [belirtili,belirtisiz,takısız,zincirleme] and 1 adjective clause. would that be fair to take "Noun phrases [clauses] " as general name [superset] while they appear as subsets?

what would your suggestion be  ?

Gentlemen, I think a noun phrase is a term of parse. The phrase is a noun in its relationship with the verbal phrase of the sentence, that is the predicate and its modifiers.

Whereas we talk about compound nouns in connection of lexeme classification, parts of speech.

They represent two different ways to see it.

I may be wrong.

I claim a new name as a general name ; "completionazation "[Tamamlama,Tamlama] I dont know if it sounds correct in english or not. But in general  the first item completes the following one.

  as we know the general name today we use for it is "tamlama" which means "to make it whole ". The first item completes the second [following] one in the ways of ;

its number --> 3 elma

its ownership --> Mavili´nin kalemi [ Mavili´s pencil]

its quality ---> Büyük kapı

etc........

Don´t you use the term attribute (nitelik?) at all in your syntax? All the above examples seem attributes to me. Examples of combinations which I used to understand as compound nouns before are kadın başkanı, okul çantası, Taksim Meydanı which do not include ownership meaning at all (which you call belirtisiz tamlamalar or what?).

Yes we use that term [ nitelik] in our syntax.. As you said all examples below the first words [noun or adjective] attributes the following nouns in quantity, ownership and quality.

its number --> 3 elma

its ownership --> Mavili´nin kalemi [ Mavili´s pencil]

its quality ---> Büyük kapı

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 kadın başkan, okul çantası, Taksim Meydanı

Yes the last two are  "belirtisiz isim tamlamaları" [undefined noun clouses] but the first one should be; 

Kadın başkan ---> as both modifier and modified nouns are nominative it is "takısız isim tamlaması " " woman president"  ... we can make it "belirtili isim tamlaması" [defined noun clouse] by adding another another noun in the begining.

Okulun kadın başkanı ---> The female [woman] president of  the school.

                                             The female [woman] principal of the school.

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Okul çantası ---> School bag --> Here "Okul" qualifies the "çanta" and its function ,what is it for . The çanta can be used for only one purpose which is for school. So its [the bag] for school. it is not supposed to be used for other purposes. The question is that " What is the bag for ? " It is for school . [ what is the bag supposed to be used for ?]

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Taksim meydanı ---> This is bit different.. "Taksim square", in here the name Taksim is explained by the following word. I mean , in other words "Taksim" is "Meydan" . It is an explanation of  the name " Taksim  ", The question is that what is that [ taksim] ? It is a square.

I will repeat my example again:

"Yolun sonundaki bakkal dükkanı" = The grocery store at the end of the road

This would be a "noun phrase" as per wikipedia page.

Can we call it isim tamlaması in Turkish? It has two "isim tamlaması" in it:

Yolun sonu = The end of the road (belirtili isim tamlaması

Bakkal dükkanı = The grocery store (belitisiz isim tanlaması

So my suggestion would be to call it "isim tamlaması grubu" or "isim tamlaması kümesi" (I don´t have a grammar book around to check if it would be called something else).

And my point is:

When you try to do some "literal translation" of Turkish grammar terms you may end up with something wrong or not-so-exact. Better approach would be to mention them as is and explain where necessary.

Whereas

"Youn sonu" is called "belirtili isim tamlaması" and "bakkal dükkanı" is called "belirtisiz isim tamlaması".

 Si++ , There is already name for it " Zincirleme İsim Tamlaması "

Tahsin Banguoğlu called it as "  Adtakımının Zincirlenmesi ".

A quick browsing of the etymological dictionary shows a strange thing. Almost all words with the initial n- are or foreign origin. There is one basic exception: ne and its derivated forms nasıl, neden, nesne, nesnel, nice, nicelik, niçin, nite, nitekim, nitelik and niye. The uniqueness of ne is booked next to the stem itself: “Eski Türkçe olup n ile başlayan tek sözcüktür.”

The stem ne- is still basic material in interrogative pronouns. Together with the pronouns hangi- and kim- and the question particle mi it covers the area of everything that Turks need to ask one another. Plus a few other things as a bonus. As a subject of unlimited conjugation, possessing, derivation and compounding Turkish uses the possibilities of this two-letter stem to its full.

The underived case forms of ne have some special features in their use. The usual accusative form of ne is ne:

         Ne duydunuz, ne gördünüz? ´What did you feel, what did you see?´

neyi is used only when the object needs to be specified (‘what exactly&rsquo or when combined with other question words (‘what and when&rsquo. ne has two dative forms: the usual dative tasks are handled with neye

         Bu resim neye ait? Neye benziyor? ´What does this picture belong to? What does it          resemble?´

while niye has specialized to the abstract meaning ‘why, for what purpose’:

         Kendine bunu niye yaptın? ´Why did you do this to yourself?´

The ablative form neden in questions also means ‘why’ but at the same time the word has lexicalized into a synonyme of sebep ‘reason’.’

         Türkiye-İsrail geriliminin nedeni budur. ´The reason for the tension between Turkey            and Israel is this.´

The path into a full noun has maybe gone through a kind af meta-talk where neden represents ‘a why-question’:

         bazı nedenlerin cevapları ´answers to a few why´s´.

The use of ne- with possessive suffixes opens a series of new meanings. The following expressions are tightly connected to the speak situation and I can’t see a way of translating them into English without a complicated explanation.

         Bu okulun nesisin? ‘what-of-this-school are you?’

         Neyin nesisiniz? ’of-what are you what-of-it?’

Plural forms of ne are typically used in exclamations, when expressing strong feelings like astonishment:

         Türk kızlarının neler yapabileceğini gördük? ´What did we see the Turkish were                  capable of doing?´ 

The use of ne- in izafet groups shows that ne in addition to that of ‘what’ also covers some of the area of the English ‘which’. If ne could here be replaced with hangi…well, I don’t know.

         Ne dersi var? Geometri dersi? ´Which lesson is there? Geometry?´

I guess it is usual in all languages that the most common question words in colloquial language sometimes takes the place of more specified question words. So can ne:

         Ne güzel güldün bu akşam bana. ‘How beautifully you smiled to me tonight.’

         Ne karışıyorsun? ’Why are you interrupting?’

The ne-family wouldn’t be perfect without compound interrogatives which learners usually get accustomed to in the very beginning (ne zaman, ne kadar, ne için > niçin, ne asıl > nasıl) and derived question words like neci ‘of what profession’, nece ‘in what language’, nice ‘(how) many’, nere ‘where, what place’. The derived forms of course can be further possessed, derived and conjugated…The most important lesson of ne is that it’s no use trying to memorize the numerous forms. Starting from the very basic level of learning one has to try to understand the structures instead.

Constructing question sentences are very easy in Turkish. Take any sentence and substitute any word with a question word to make it a question sentence.

Example:

Ali yarın bize gelecek

Ali yarın bize gelecek -> Kim yarın bize gelecek?

Ali yarın bize gelecek -> Ali ne zaman bize gelecek?

Ali yarın bize gelecek -> Ali yarın kime gelecek?

Ali yarın bize gelecek -> Ali yarın bize ne yapacak?

Ali yarın bize gelecek -> Kim ne zaman bize gelecek?

Ali yarın bize gelecek -> Kim yarın kime gelecek?

... (some other combos and)

Ali yarın bize gelecek -> Kim ne zaman kime ne yapacak?

No change whatsoever in the word order!

The only question word which is difficult to place sometimes is niye/neden, because it doesn´t actually substitute anything but comes from behind the tree.

Doesn!´t it? Let´s work it out on some examples.

Canım sıkıldığı için dışarı gezmeye çıktım. -> Ne için dışarı gezmeye çıktım?

Canım sıkıldığından dışarı gezmeye çıktım. -> Neden dışarı gezmeye çıktım?

Because I got bored, I went out for walking around -> For what, did I go out for walking around?

Gezmeye dışarı çıktın -> Niye (Neye) dışarı çıktın?

I went out for walking around -> For doing what, did you go out?

The problem is the question comes before the answer (but I understand what you mean: I can imagine the answer there).

I feel often tempted to place niye right before the predicate. The question word feels like the most important thing in the sentence, actually the reason for uttering it.

1. I have been wondering if the postposition başka and the pronoun başka have slightly different meanings. It seems to me that –den başka + the 3^rd person possessive suffix always means ‘other than the thing that is marked with ablative, the choice being from the largest imaginable group’. That’s how it seems in my examples:

Bizden başkalarına benzemeye çalışanlar, bizden değildir.  -  ‘other than us’

Allah’tan başkasına yemin etmek şirk midir?  -  ‘other than Allah’

The pronoun başka (with possessive suffix and no ablative around) seems to denote a division inside the group itself, at least here:

Bazılarımız okula gidiyor, ve başkalarımız çalışıp maaşlarını alabiliyorlar.  -  ‘others  -  others’

Hz. Peygamber (sav) şöyle buyurmuştur: "Birinizin satışı üzerine başkanız satış yapmasın."  -  ‘other  -  other’

Is this the correct interpretation? başkalarımız in the above examples means ‘others of ours’. Can it also mean ‘others than us’ (some occurances make me wonder) or is this meaning always carried by the postposition structure?

2. I find strange uses of the adjective başka:

bir başka ülke

bir başka kadın

What are they?

Başka should mean those who are not like us. (In set theory "belonging to another set")

Diğer should mean other than us. (In set theory "belonging to the same superset but another subset)

But shouldn´t it be başka bir kadın, başka bir ülke?

Başka bir kadın = Another woman

Bir başka kadın = An other woman

(OK it doesn´t tell too much. Treat "bir başka" as a unit that means "one other" or "one different". "bir" is an adverb that modifies "başka". Should mean something like "a unique other".)

si++. Thanks. The rest you know.

Reciprocal expressions denote a special relationship between two noun phrases of a sentence in which they take the role of both agent and patient. In English there are two reciprocal pronouns, one another and each other. Turkish has a special reciprocal morpheme in verbs (anla-ş-mak ‘understand each other, agree’ ) and in addition the very transparent pronoun birbir.

Reflexivity is a special case of reciprocality. This kinship in meaning shows in the Turkish pronouns for ‘by oneself’ and ‘to one another’:

birbir is obligatorily inflected for person:

birbirimiz (pl 1^st)

birbiriniz (pl 2^nd)

birbiri/birbirleri (pl 3^rd)

Once the possessive suffix has been added we are free to conjugate birbir- in case. Note that using the reciprocal pronoun is a reason good enough to omit its antecedent from the sentence if it is a personal pronoun:

Birbir|iniz|le çok iyi anlaşıyorsunuz.

Birbir|leri|n|i iki yıldır görmüyorlar.

The antecedent of a reciprocal pronoun doesn’t necessarily have to be the subject of the clause:

Size birbir|iniz|den hiç söz etmedim.

birbir- can not act as the subject of sentence but you can find it as the inlayed subject, the antecedent being in the main clause:

Birbir|imiz|in sevdiği renkleri sevmiyor|uz.

(Aslı Göksel – Celia Gerslake, Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar)

BAŞKA

1) As adjective

Bu şapkayı beğenmedim; lütfen başka (bir tane ) gösterin - I don´t like this hat; please show me another (one )

Bunu başka bir zaman yapabiliriz - We can do that another time

2) As noun and pronoun (always with 3rd person possessive suffix)

Başkaları bunu bilmesin - Don´t let the others know it

Ali´den başkası böyle bir şeyi söylemez(di ) - No one besides Ali would say a thing like that

3) as postposition (-dan/-den başka )

Bundan başka üç şapkam daha var - I have three other hats besides this

Bundan başka bir şeyim yok - I have nothing else other than this

What in your opinion makes a pronoun, scalpel? Is it the possessive suffix? Does this mean postpositions are inflexible like adjectives? I am asking because I have been thinking about this a lot while writing these texts.

Another thing is if it is important to know it or not. From a learner´s view I sometimes feel like it is enough to know what is an adjective and what is not.

It looks to me like a line which has been drawn to water  -  I don´t know if you have this saying or not but maybe you understand what I mean.

Adding -sı to başka, makes it pronoun and this new form takes the place of a person or thing (plu- başkaları ) :

Anne - Saat 9´da yatağa gitmelisin (you should go to bed at 9 )

Kız - Ama arkadaşım Aslı saat 10.30´da yatağa gittiğini söylüyor (but my friend Aslı says she goes to bed at 10:30 )  

Anne - Başkası seni ilgilendirmez!

Başkası (= Aslı ) doesn´t interest /concern you => just because she goes to bed at 10:30, doesn´t mean you should do the same.    

Anne could also say this: başkaları seni ilgilendirmez ( başkaları = Aslı and people like her )

I noticed that the dictionary linked to the forum doesn´t explain these words well...

I hope the following info will help you..

diğer (=other) adj, pron. (person or thing) not already named or implied. 1 (=the other) the second of two: (a ) diğer (both sing and pl )adj. Postane sokağın diğer tarafında = The post office is on the other side of the street. Diğer kızlar nerede? = wher are the other girls?  diğer taraftan = on the other hand (sometimes but not always, after bir taraftan = on the one hand ) Ucuz ama diğer taraftan da kalitesiz = It´s cheap, but on the other hand the quality is poor (b )diğeri (sing) pron. Birisi benim; diğeri kız kardeşimin = One of them is mine; the other is my sister´s. 2 diğerleri (=the others ) pron. (pl ) when the reference is to two or more: Altısı benim; diğerleri Ali´nin = Six of them are mine; the others are Ali´s. 3 (When one member of a group is compared with any other member of the group, diğer (adj ) / diğerleri (pron ) usually used) Alex takımın diğer oyuncularından çok daha iyi bir forvet = Alex is far more better as a forward than any other member of the team. 

* öbür, öteki are synonyms for diğer: öbür taraftan, öteki tarafta, öteki kız kardeşimin, öbürküler Ali´nin.. 

başka (= another ) pron. adj. an additional (one ); a different one. 1 adj.  Başka çay alır mısınız? = will you have another cup of tea? Buna dair başka bir söz söylemeyeceğim = I won´t say another word about it. Başka bir güne ertele - put it off  to another day 2 pron. başkası Bu gömlek çok büyük, başkasını deneyeceğim = This shirt is too big; I´ll try another

I remember I tried to write about these differences but I couldn´t. Good you did, scalpel.

With the contribution from natives we´ve got so much nice stuff into this thread. As the initiator I thought I will begin to collect an ectrance fee from anyone who wants to see it.

The English demonstrative pronouns express a simple distance contrast. They indicate the relative distance between the speaker and the referent. this denotes a referent in relative proximity to the speaker and that denotes a referent at a greater distance. it roughly refers to an object which is out of sight.

Turkish has a three-way (bu – şu – o) demonstrative system which obligatorily encodes both distance contrasts and absence or presence of the addressee’s visual attention on the referent. The listener’s point of view is the thing that makes choosing between Turkish demonstratives often difficult for English speakers. The following describes how a Turk chooses between o and şu:

For example, imagine a dinner with two people, where one of them needs to refer to a glass away from her on the table. In English the speaker could say ‘could you pass me that glass? ’ since the glass is away from where she is sitting. However, in Turkish, depending on the addressee’s visual attention on the referent, the speaker would use “şu” if the addressee’s visual attention is away from the glass (e.g. when she is concentrated on the food), but use “o”, that is the distal form, if the addressee’s attention is directed towards or presumed to be on the referent. (Küntay& Özyürek 2003, http://home.ku.edu.tr/~akuntay/KuntayOzyurek.pdf)

bu is used for proximal and o for distal referents. şu is neutral with regard to distance specifications. If the listener’s eye-gaze is not on the referent the speaker is more likely to use şu instead of bu or o. In short, şu overcomes both bu and o if the addressee does not look at the object.

It’s not so easy. According to research 6-year old Turkish children do not master adult-like use of demonstratives yet.

In conversation and written language, a good rule of thumb is that bu means ‘the one that has just been mentioned’ and şu means ‘the following’ (Lewis 1969.):

Bunları boşver.

Etkili bir dinleme için şunları yapın:…

The use of the suffix -ki  -  even though it is an indeclinable clitic  -  comes to the area of pronouns. –ki creates equivalents to English relative clauses or independent possessive pronouns (of the type mine, yours, ours). –ki does not produce pronouns but generally adjectives. Instead, in the declined word it represents the pronoun which can be seen in all the following examples. -ki is actually a text book example of a pronoun according to its definition: it comes to the phrase to substitute a noun, it stands in the agglutinated word pro noun.

–ki is typically attached to genitive words and expressions of place or time.

Ayşe|nin|ki ‘the one that belongs to Ayşe’

bizim|ki ‘the one that belongs to us’

arkadaş|lar|ınız|ın|ki ‘ the one that belongs to your friends’

ön|ünüz|de|ki ‘the one that is in front of you’

dün|kü ‘that of yesterday’

İzmir|’de|ki ‘the one that is in Izmir.

Any pronominal form containing –ki can be further modified. It can take the plural –ler:

masa|da|ki|ler ‘those which are on the table’.

A case suffix can be further added either to the singular or the plural form (note that the pronominal –n- is used after –ki only in the singular):

ben|de|ki|n|e ‘to the one that I have’

ev|in|ki|ler|i ‘the ones belonging to the house (ACC)’

In addition, the markers ile, -ce and –siz can be added to a word with –ki:

sokak|ta|ki|yle ‘with the one on the street’

The clitic –ki is like a full stop in a word. What is not usually possible in Turkish morphology, like doubled plural marking or the same case ending repeated twice can be found in words with –ki.

masa|lar|da|ki|ler ‘the ones that are on the tables’

ev|de|ki|ler|de ‘in the ones in the house’

Even though the morphology seems complicated the meaning is quite practical and ordinary. The same can be said about the example with two –ki’s.

ev|de|ki|ler|in|ki ‘the one belonging to those at home’.

(I used the usual web sites, Lewis 1969 and Göksel – Kerslake 2004.)

This may be a helpful addition to your post..

(locative -da/-de  + ki ) + noun => noun +  prepositional phrase (on, in, under,between)

Turkish ---------------------------->English

köşedeki ev - the house on the corner

Sıvıdaki moleküller - the molecules in the liquid

Yer altındaki su - the water under the ground

Sonuçlar arasındaki fark - the difference between the results

Thank you for reading it, scalpel.

If we need to put all –ki phrases under the same headline it should be “Equivalents to English relative clauses”. This is the explanation that Wikipedia article writer has used (I didn’t look further what his/her sources were). In a way it makes sense if you just imagine some dropped elements. A different question is whether you always need to explain everything through English grammar.

In its morphological transparency it find it a very fascinating structure.

The first impression of Turkish personal pronouns is that you hardly ever see them, except in the beginners’ translation attempts  -  soon deleted by the teachers. According to statistics, the impression seems to be only partly true. I took a look at word frequencies in English and Turkish. I don’t know if the materials are comparable, but surprisingly ben and o are among the ten most usual words in Turkish just like I and both he and it are in English. sen, though, is much less frequent than you (despite of the many meanings of the latter). If we also ignore o because lack of gender may create the wrong image, I still have ben in my hands and I can’t understand its high rank. Maybe one of the natives can explain it.

Personal pronouns in subject position are usually dropped. The detailed system of personal verb conjugation gives a chance to this. At least in certain types of texts like practical istructions pronouns in object position also have to go. When ben, sen, o… become visible in a sentence there is usually a reason for it. This has been studied by scholars. Most of the cases mentioned in grammars are intuitively obvious even for a learner, like signalling change of topic, sentence stress or contrasts between possible situations or NP referents.

A couple of syntactic reasons for showing the personal pronoun should be mentioned, though:

1. The referent of the 3^rd person genitive marked pronoun is always someone else than the subject of the clause. There is a crucial difference between the sentences

Semra onun anahtarlarını kaybetmış

Semra anahtarlarını kaybetmış.

2. You have to show the pronoun when the 3^rd person subject has been introduced in another syntactic position in the previous sentence:

Kitabı Zerrin’e verdim. O ne zamandır onu okumak istiyordu.

(Göksel – Kerslake, Turkish: a Comprehensive Grammar 2005. Enç, an article in Studies in Turkish Linguistics 1986.)

Is

         ?çoğu insanlar

or

         ?çoğu insan

a correct alternative for

         insanların çoğu

for the meaning ´most people´?

çoğu insan or insanların çoğu

scalpel, thanks.

A pro noun by definition is something that represents a noun, stands for it, takes its place.

What makes a pronoun in Turkish is often the third person possessive suffix. It attaches to adjectives and adverbs. Once POSS is added the word can be further declined. The use of POSS makes it possible to make pronouns out of many kinds of adjectives, not only those which we got used to in other languages.

         Öğrencilerin altısı sigara içmiyor. ‘Six (students) of the students don’t smoke.’
         Sarısını satın aldım. ‘I bought the yellow (shirt).’

What I am trying to say is maybe better than talking about Turkish pronouns we should talk about pronominal use of words. Or non-verbs which may have as well a) noun-like, b) adjectival or c) pronominal use.

         a) 4 büyükten en iyisi hangisi?
         b) Büyük oğlum 20 yaşında.
         c) Baba bunların büyüğüne para verdi.

Not sure if these are good examples...

Birisi iyi - One of them is good

Sarısı iyi - The yellow one is good

Soldaki iyi - The one on the left is good

Beğendiğin iyi - The one you like is good

First, I disagree with you on 4, it should be 3. (FB, GS, BJK)  

Second, the answer to this question always is: FB  

Scalpel, sanırım FB´yi tutuyorsun 

I admire the expressing power of 3rd sg POSS. Where does it refer actually? To the Platonic world of ideas. I´m not joking.

 Ustadım, your answer to that question is grammatically correct but in reality wrong As it should be GS  [always]

I live in Fenerbahçe, Kadıköy. I am graduated from Fenerbahçe Lisesi and I support Fenerbahçe. But I wonder what makes an Ankara man be a fanatic supporter of Galatasaray which is deemed to be the second biggest football club in İstanbul? This explains well why Ankara has never been in the competition.. Meanwhile, is there any İzmir team in Spor Toto Süper Lig? Shame on both cities for they support İstanbul football clubs!

Evet

It is the power of Turkish Language We should study more on "the expressing power of 3rdPOSS".. maybe its pl is possible also? 

I don´t think so.

I live in Fenerbahçe, Kadıköy. I am graduated from Fenerbahçe Lisesi and I support Fenerbahçe. But I wonder what makes an Ankara man be a fanatic supporter of Galatasaray which is deemed to be the second biggest football club in İstanbul? This explains well why Ankara has never been in the competition.. Meanwhile, is there any İzmir team in Spor Toto Süper Lig? Shame on both cities for they support İstanbul football clubs!

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Ustad, First of all, Although I am an Ankara man

 1. I was born in İstanbul and I spent my childhood in Istanbul.[up to age of 6 ]

 2. Having supporters from outside of Istanbul makes the team [ Galatasaray ] great.

 3. It shows that the team´s influence is not limited with local supporters, on the contrary it is loved by whole country.

   by the way, Ankara teams [ Ankaragücü and Gençlerbirliği] dont have big budgets as Istanbul teams , but they have great supporters and spirit.

Hocam, would you please help us with this

I think it should be plural when they are two or more yellow shirts..

Sarılarını aldım - I bought the yellow ones 

I mean  -  and scalpel knows better  -  sg is primary to pl in this function. Or maybe I should say number is not a very important factor. When it comes to inanimate things they are often referred to in sg, isn´t it? Plural lerlerler looks to me like a form which has been created on the basis of analogy on the desk of language planners (and purists) for the sake of clarity and completing the symmetry of the system.

I am talking about cases where there is a POSS in the noun but there is no actual owner around. If the owner is visible it´s another thing I suppose. These ownerless cases are so interesting.

The plural marking can be there for two reasons:

         1. because the owned are many

         2. because the owners are many.

In your sentence the owned are many, aren´t they? That´s why it is necessary to specify that it is more than one. But when we refer to the lacking owner (or the idea of a shirt) I guess number is not important and thus it is sg. I wish I could find a good example...

onların birçoğu OR onlardan birçoğu

çocukların biri OR çocuklardan biri

What’s the difference?

onların birçoğu OR onlardan birçoğu = many of them

çocukların biri OR çocuklardan biri   = one of the kids

There is no difference.

* In  possessive constructions with indefinite pronouns [ birçoğu,biri,pekçoğu...] the head [first part ] can take ablative suffix "dAn"  instead of possessive marking [-In].

onlardan  birçoğu

Head       

*  Belirtili ad tamlamalarında, tamlanan belgisiz zamirse, tamlayan eki (-in) yerine (-den) eki kullanılabilir:   Çocukların birkaçı yoktu.   =   Çocuklardan, birkaçı yoktu.

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*It applies to double possessive forms too. I mean ;

Çocuklarının biri   =  Çocuklarından   biri --->One of his/her kids

ının = ından

Well, that´s a relief. I thought everyone understands this but I don´t.

But...a while ago you corrected me, tunci:

Onlardan biri içine bakıp diğerine “Bu güzel serin bir yer gibi görünüyor.

I had replaced "ın" with "dan" , it is not because it was wrong, it is because it didn´t sound good to me in that particular sentence.

The smoothness of flow in sentences is important too.

Clear. Thanks, tunci. Your brain seems to be in good oxygen again.

I need to point out one more thing before my oxigen level goes down again ; That is ;

 in the sentence we should have added the indirect object [ kuyu ] as without it, it sounds bit lacking in the meaning. I know in the context we will tell it but still not sounding complete without indirect object.

by looking inside BUT looking in  where [inside of what ]?

Therefore we´d better add it ;

Onlardan biri kuyunun içine bakıp diğerine “Bu güzel serin bir yer gibi görünüyor.

One last thing ; We can drop the first part [head] and just say "biri" as it is more practical and easy way.

Biri, kuyunun içine bakıp diğerine “Bu güzel serin bir yer gibi görünüyor.

I´d better head to my bed now..

Second form implies a selection

Çocukların biri = a member of children

Çocuklardan biri = a (selected) member of children

Or using set theory terms:

Çocukların biri = "biri" is a member of the children set

Çocuklardan biri = "biri" is a member of a subset of the children set (a subset implies a selection from a set)

Thank you, too, si++. I guess I can imagine what you mean. There is a similar slight difference in my native language, made with ablative also.

Ablative is one interesting case.

In onlardan birçoğ|u the possessive suffix in the second part can´t be motivated by a possessive construction. There has to be another reason.

bütün combined with a singular noun means ´the whole´:

                               bütün millet ´the whole nation´

                               milletin bütünü ´the whole of the nation´

But combined with a plural noun it makes ´all´:

                                bütün milletler ´all the nations´

                                milletlerin bütünü ´all of the nations´ (right?)

But how do you say ´whole/complete nations´?

Does someone have an answer for this please? ^^^^

Thank you, si++. The most important thing to remember is that bütün/tüm cannot be used for this meaning.

What is the difference between

                           az and biraz

                           çok and birçok

                           kaç and birkaç

                           şey and birşey?

I don´t know. It is the same thing with little/a little, few/ a few.

That is what I suspected. So am I close if I translate

az ´too little/few, something lacking´

biraz ´not much but enough´

çok ´too much/many, more than enough´

birçok ´quite much/many but don´t get me wrong I am not complaining about the great number of the objects´ ?

kaç/birkaç of course occur in different discourses (question/declarative) but how much does is birkaç actually mean? Is biraz + singular referent, birkaç + plural referent a valid rule?

Yes but it means more than one.

Some enlightenment to the issue. Thanks, gokuyum.