Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar

Where a plural suffix is present the kinds of ambiguity discussed in 14.3.2 (ii) and (iii),
regarding whether the plurality affects the possessed item, the possessor, or both, also
arise:
(48)
(a) Telefon numara-lar-ın-ı yazdım.
(i) telephone number-PL-NC-ACC
‘I‘ve writ ten down the telephone numbers.’
(ii) telephone number-PL-2SG.POSS-ACC
‘I’ve written down your telephone numbers.’
(iii) telephone number-PL-3SG.POSS-ACC
‘I’ve written down his/her telephone numbers.’
(b) Telefon numara-ların-ı yazdım.
(i) telephone number-3PL.POSS-ACC
‘I’ve written down their telephone number.’
(ii) telephone number-PL.3PL.POSS-ACC
‘I’ve written down their telephone numbers.’
In all of these cases, except for the non-possessive (47a) and (48a (i)), the use of a
genitive-marked noun phrase or pronoun can eliminate the ambiguity (see 14.4).
14.3.3 CASE
Turkish has five case suffixes (8.1.3), which mark respectively the accusative, dative,
locative, ablative and genitive cases. (The comitative/ instrumental marker -(y)lA/ile,
which shares some properties with case suffixes, is discussed in 8.1.4 and 17.2.1.) The
function of case marking (or its absence) is to indicate the relationship between the noun
phrase to which it is attached and other sentence constituents.
14.3.3.1 The non-case-marked noun phrase
A noun phrase is left without case marking when it functions as one of the items listed
below:
(i) The subject of one of the following types of clause:
A main clause:
(49) Bunu belki siz bilebilirsiniz.
‘Perhaps you may know this.’
A finite subordinate clause:
Turkish: A comprehensive grammar 154
(50) [Herkes görsün diye] kartı masanın üstünde bırakıyorum.
‘I’m leaving the card on the table [so that everyone will see it].’
An adverbial clause (for exceptions see 26.2.1):