Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar

who-PL-ACC
‘Who do you see (nowadays)?’
(13) Pek kimseyi görmüyorum.
‘I don’t see anyone much.’
(e) öbürü/öteki ‘the other (one)’, and their plural forms öbürleri/ötekiler (18.4–5):
(14) Bir anahtar burada, öbürünü gördün mü?
‘One key is here; have you seen the other(one)?’
(iii) A noun phrase that includes one of the definite determiners (15.6.2):
(15) Bana {bu oda}-yı ver-di-ler.
I(DAT) this room-ACC give-PF-3PL
‘They have given me {this room}.’
(16) Siz {hangi kitab}-ı daha yararlı buldunuz?
‘{Which book} did you find more useful?’
22.2 INDEFINITE STATUS
If a noun phrase includes bir (‘a(n’) or any of the other indefinite determiners (15.6.1) it
is unambiguously indefinite. A noun phrase that includes a cardinal or distributive
numeral is also interpreted as indefinite unless (i) a definite determiner (15.6.2) is also
present, or (ii) the noun phrase is followed by the clitic dA (see 15.9.1). Finally, noun
phrases that include neither a determiner nor a numeral but are marked with the plural
suffix -lAr have indefinite status in some contexts but not in others. They are
unambiguously indefinite where they occur as non-case-marked direct objects, as in
(17c). Otherwise, their referential status (definite, indefinite or generic) is determined by
the word order (22.5), stress pattern (22.6) or modality (22.7) of the sentence.
(17)
Turkish: A comprehensive grammar 324
(a) Çekmece-de bir defter bul-du-k.
drawer-LOC a notebook find-PF-1PL
‘We found a notebook in the drawer.’
(b) Çekmecede dört (tane) defter bulduk.
four ENUM notebook
‘We found four notebooks in the drawer.’
(c) Çekmecede defter-ler bulduk.
notebook-PL
‘We found notebooks in the drawer.’
(d) Çekmecede birtakım defter-ler bulduk.
some notebook-PL
‘We found some notebooks in the drawer.’
Note that şey ‘thing’ and yer ‘place’ do not occur in the plural-marked form as indefinites
unless preceded by either an adjective or a determiner. See also 14.3.1.1.