Noun cases exist because of verbs that are used in these cases. When you are going you are going 'to' a place and when you are coming you are coming 'from' a place and living 'in' a place and staying 'at' or 'on' a place. So there is a relation between the verb and the noun. In English this relation is created with the prepositions "in, at, on, from, to". So we say "going to İstanbul", "coming from Ankara", "living in Ankara". In Turkish we have case suffixes.

If there is no conjugable verb then there is no case suffix.

On the other hand genitive is different. Unlike the case suffixes it doesn't create a relation between the verb and a noun but between two nouns.

A good strategy is to learn all case suffixes when you study the verbs. Case suffixes are there because there must be a verb that uses that case. In a sentence change the verb and the case suffix will change. Remove the verb and the case suffix will go. You can not study a case suffix without learning the verbs that use that case. For instance you are going 'to', looking 'to', smiling 'to' and you are coming 'from', falling 'from', escaping 'from' etc.

Genitive can be studied independent than verbs. It has to do with nouns. For instance "İstanbul'un havası", "Ali'nin evi" etc.

As much as I can see in my grammar (written for university students of Turkish language), genitive is treated as regular noun case, not only because it exists parallelly with possessive mode (nominal words with possesive suffixes), but also because it has not only possesive meaning (like "Saxon genitive" in English) but also partitive and some others as well. There are several examples there:

1) feature: karın beyazlığı, içkinin zararlıgı
2) relation of functional dependance: okulun müdürü, hastanenin başhemşiresi
3) spatial and temporal relations: ayın ortası, sabahın beşinde
4) relation of a part towards the totality and distinguishing by quality: kadınların hangisi?, tilklerin ikisi, talebelerin en çalışkanı, tembellerın tembeli
5) totality of persons or things: insanların türmü
6) unit of measurement: benzinin litresi
7) subjective genitive: askerlerin öldürmesi
8) objective genitive: askerlerin öldürülmesi, hırsızın tevkifi

Well, regular noun case or not? Who will help?

Some sources mention only five noun cases. Examples:
http://www.itusozluk.com/goster.php?t=ismin+halleri
http://www.fono.com.tr/?sf=icerik&makaleID=111&ktgID=236&hgsf=liste&ktgad=%C3%84%C2%B0talyanca%20Dilbilgisi&mn=2

Some sources mention six. This one for instance:
http://www.cs.bilkent.edu.tr/~guvenir/CATT/GrammarTutor/

It is possible to put the genitive in the same list. It doesn't make any difference where you put it. My point was that I was talking about the relation between noun cases and verbs. At this stage the genitive has no role but all the other noun cases have. It is, "-i sevmek, -e gitmek, -de yaşamak, -den hoşlanmak."

To a learner of Turkish as a second language, it is important to learn verbs with their noun cases. For instance a learner not only needs to know that 'sevmek' is 'to love' but that it is "-i sevmek". 'Sevmek' takes the -i case. All verbs take a case among the five noun cases.

In my lessons I use this "i bilmek", "-den hoşlanmak" version frequently. This help the learner to understand that noun cases are assigned to certain verbs.

Othervise ther learner is not going to understand why it is "İstanbul'u seviyorum" with 'u' and "Ali okula gitti" with 'a'.

Now I teach Turkish as a foreign language in two different schools in London and devide the subjects into smaller parts. There are many different subjects of course.

"Verbs and five noun cases" is one of the main subjects we have. At this stage the learner learns why it is,
"İstanbul çok güzel", "İstanbul'a gidiyorum", "İstanbul'u seviyorum", "İstanbul'da yaşıyorum" and "İstanbul'dan geliyorum".

The genitivie I have put into a different category. In this category we have these:
a. Possessive Adjectives (iyelik sıfatı ):benim, senin,...
b. Possessive Suffixes (İyelik eki ): arabam, araban, arabası
c. Genitive Case (Tamlayan Hali ): Ali'nin, İstanbul'un, etc.
d. Compound Nouns (isim tamlaması ) : "Ali'nin arabası", "İstanbul'un havası", "Benim adım" etc.

In the compound nouns subject we have the genitive and posessive suffix together. The first noun takes the genitive and the second noun takes the possessive suffix.

I see genetive and other cases in completely different categories because of usage and practical reasons.

I have added more information on my above post. You are right. If the genitive is to be considered together with the other noun cases than we could consider adding the -le case as well.

Thank you one more time. I even had wondered if vocative should be a noun case in Turkish, being the same as nominative, until I realized that here was the difference in stressed syllable. The learners who speak at least one of the Slavic languages have less problems with noun cases generally (our systems are even more complicated), but the position of stressed syllable in a word is still an aenigma for me. Thanks to my grammar, I grasped some rules, especially about stressed and non-stressed (enclitic) suffixes, but is there a chance to get a separate thread on that topic from you? That would help much in distinguishing the "homonimous" constructions which actually have different pronunciation, and it would resolve many of our dilemmas.

D.

I don't understand what you mean by stressed suffix and unstressed suffix. I don't use these terms myself and haven't seen them being used.

I'm guessing that you are talking about this issue:

When "İstanbul" becomes "İstanbul'da" we say it as "İs-tan-bul-da" but when it is "İstanbul'a" it is differenct. The "a" at the end is impossible to stress. Why? Because we generate the sounds according syllables. The syllables here are "İs-tan-bu-la" so you can never stress the 'a' at the end.

Smillarly 'okul' becomes 'okula' in dative. We say "Okula gidiyorum". But we can never stress the "a" in okula since the syllables are "o-ku-la".

Have a look on this topic:
SYLLABLING - A Basic Issue Of Turkish Pronunciation
http://www.turkishclass.com/forumTitle_6_1466

Syllabling is one of the topics I teach in my lessons. I never understood why Turkish language sources ignore this basic issue.

I suppose different grammarians use different terms. I learnt it in English as "stressed syllable", but you also can say "accented", "emphasized" etc. The accentuation of simple words - like pronouns, nouns, adverbs, adjectives etc. can be found in some better dictionaries (e.g. baBA, bıçAK, SOnra, etc.), but it is rather difficult to learn which suffixes are to be pronounced with emphazis (vurgu), and which ones not. For example: babA - babaLAR - babalarıMIZ - babalarımızDAN. Sufixes -ler/lar, possessive suffixes, ablative suffix and many others are pronounced with emphazis, and some of them not - so-called "enclitical suffixes" (like in personal suffixes for the predicate nominative, like "dokTORum - I am a doctor) - which makes the great difference between seemingly homonymous words:
gelMEM - my coming; GELmem - I don't come
VARdı - there was; varDI - he arrived
KIZsın - you are girl; kızSIN - let him be angry!
etc.
Of course native Turkish speakers don't have problems to make the difference and stress the right syllable, but it is very hard for strange learners.

The second problem is accentuation (melody) of a phrase/sentence, with all the mentioned problems of homonymity. I rewrite two examples:

Çalış__baban__gibi // BOŞ__OTURMA! – Work like your father, don't sit idle!
ÇALIŞ // baban__gibi__boş__oturma! – Work, don't sit idle like your father!

The third problem of accentuation are - as I have found - three types of accent. For these, I do not know exact terms, so I translate literally:
1) musical or melodical accent (the syllable is pronounced a bit higher)
2) dynamic or expiratory (the strongest syllable in a word, with the strong expiration)
3) secundary expiratory accent - ...but the explanation is so long an complicated that I won't write it here.

Hope I managed to explain some of the most acute problems with accentuation. Suppose many foreign learners have the same problems. I can hear some Turkish word or sentence thousand times, but I just cannot remember its accent, because I cannot "classify" it in my mind as a consequence of some phonetical rule.

Regards, D.