Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar

Conjunctions, co-ordination and discourse connection 461
‘Esra’s mother and father’
28.4.3 The elision of noun phrases in other contexts
Unlike other types of phrase, noun phrases are regularly omitted in contexts other than
co-ordinated constructions, wherever (a) the identity of the referent is unambiguous, and
(b) (in the case of subjects or possessors) no contrast is involved or emphasis required:
(139) Bugün Ayşe’yi gördüm. (…) Sana selam söyledi.
‘I saw Ayşe today. She sent you her love.’
For the conditions governing the omission of subject pronouns, and of genitive-marked
pronouns expressing possessor-modifiers, see 18.1.5.
Direct object noun phrases are are also regularly omitted after their first mention, for
as long as the identity of the referent can still be assumed to be unambiguously
identifiable by the hearer:
(140) Beyaz Kale’yi ilk defa 1990’da okudum ve (…) çok sevdim.
Geçen hafta [Handan (…) bana verince] (…) yeniden okudum.
‘I first read The White Castle in 1990 and liked [it] very much. Last week [when
Handan gave [it] to me] I read [it] again.’
Noun phrase ellipsis also crosses the boundary beween the utterances of different
speakers, and occurs regularly in answers to questions:
(141) A.– Kitabını buldun mu?
‘Have you found your book?’
B.– (…) Aramadım ki.
‘I haven’t looked for [it].’
Another context in which noun phrase ellipsis occurs is where the referent is identified by
non-linguistic means:
(142) A. (pointing at something)—(…) Gördün mü?
‘See?’ (lit. ‘Have you seen [it]?’)
B.– Tabii. Ben (…) yaptım.
‘Sure. I did [it].’