Chuluu Ujiyediin A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Department of East Asian Studies University of Toronto 8 Copyright by Chuluu Ujiyediin 1998 Bibliothèque nationale du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographic Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, me Wellington OttawaON K1AW Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to BibIiotheque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or selI reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microfom, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/nIm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts i?om it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otheNVise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Studies on Mongolian Verb Morphology Chuluu Ujiyedün The degree of Dodor of Philosophy Graduate Department of East Asian Studies University of Toronto 1998 ABSTRACT This dissertation studies Mongolian verb morphology on the basis of the Modem Mongolian (Inner Mongolia) rnatenals. It is based on the descriptive and theoretical advances made in modem linguistics and provides extensive analysis of the key issues conceming verb morphoiogy with regard to the Mongolian situation. The dissertation consists of seven chapters, but the main conceni of the thesis 1s essentially twofold, the derivational and inflectional morphemes of the verbs. The first section presents a discussion of verb derivation, focusing on the issue of the verb derived by suffixation. The second part is a discussion of the inflectional categories of the verb. In this section, we deal with several issues, such as converb, awiliary, tense, aspect, mood, voice, and the causative. Converbs can be divided into contextual and speciaiized converbs by semantic criteria and each of these converbs expresses particular circumstantial meanings. The auxiliary in Mongolian is generally used either to place the situation descnbed in the sentence with reference to time (tense), to ascribe a temporal contour to it (aspect), or to assess its reality (modality). The tense categories in Mongolian distinguish the non-past and past tenses. We examine in depth the meanings and functions of the various tense morphemes. There is no dient idectional morpheme for rnarking either the opposition of the perfective and imperfective aspects or the perlect in Mongolian, but there are severai kinds of single fom or compound structure for signaling the sub-classes of imperfective and perfect Mood and modaiity in Mongolian can be expressed in different ways. our discussion is. however, restncted to modaiity expressed through verbal morphology only and some auxiliary verbs which express mood. Voice includes active. passive. and reciprocal voices. In this section. we present some cletaileci description of the meanings and functions of voice suffixes. In the discussion of the causaiive construction. we reveal some characteristic features of the causative in terms of the relaûonship between the causer and causee. CONTENTS Lisr of tables IX Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1.1 The Mongols and their Ianguages 1.1.1 The Mongols and related peoples 1.1.2 TheMongoliclanguages 1.1.3 Mongolian 1.2 Studies on the Mongolian verb system 1.2.1 Studies on verb derivation 1 2.3 Studies on verb inflection 1.3 Theoretical framework 1-3.1 Some basic morphologicai terms 1.3.2 The distinction between denvation and inflection 1 -4 Outline of Mongolian Morphology 1.5 Data and conventions of transcription Chapter 2 Verb Derivation 35 S. 1 The suffixes used across the word-class 35 2.1.1 The suffix -la-/-le- 36 2.1.2 The -rd-re- suffix 40 2.1.3 The 4%-1453- suffix 40 2.1.4 The difference between these suffixes 42 2.2 The suffixes used with nouns or adjectives 49 3-21 The-daide-suffis 49 2.2.2 The -Mila-/-Mile- suffix 52 2.2.3 The 4la-I-Eile- suffix 54 2.2.4 The -ji- suffix 56 2.1.5 The -jira-1-pre- suffix 57 2.2.6 The -si- suffix 58 2.2.7 The &a-/-sire- suffix 59 2.2.8 The -siya-1-siye- suffix 60 2.2.9 The -rqa/-rke suffix 61 2-2-10The -sa-/-se- suffix 64 2.3 The suffixes used after adverb, adjective, and verb W 2.3.1 The -i-. -Ija/-1-lje-. -baljd-/-belje-, -yaijja/-/-gel je-, and -yana/-/-gene- suffixes 65 2.3.2 The -gi-. +na-/-@ne-. Eiyina-/-Eigine-, and -km-1-kire- suffixes 73 Chapter 3 Converb, Verbal noun, and Auxiliary 3.1 Converb 3.1.1 Contextual Converb 3.1-1 .1 Converbs in -3-Jü or 4dEü 3.1.1.2 Converbs in -n 3.1.1.3 Converb in -yadl-ged 3.1.1.4 Discussion of contextual converbs 3.1.1.5 Converb in -pyar/-gseger 3.1.2 Specialized converbs 3.1.2.1 Converbs in -bd-bd and -baW-b&ü 3.1.2.2 Converbs in qulad-Mer. quia/-kiile. and -=$a/-meg& 3.1 -3.3 Converbs in -tala/-tele 3.1.2.4 Converbs in qad-ker 3.2. Verbal noun 3.2.1 Verbal noun in -ysad-gsen 3.2.2 Theqd-küsuffix 3.2.3 The-da./-degsuffix 3.2.4 The-yal-gesuffix 3.2.5 The -mar/-mer suffix 3.3 Adiary 3-3.1 The Copular Auxiliary 3 -3-2 The Quasi-auuiiiary Chapter 4 Tense 4.1 Tense system 4.2 Tense in Mongolian 4.3.1 The non-past tense 4.22 The past tense 4.2 -3 The sernantic meaning of the verb and Mongolian tense suffixes 4.2.4 The dif ference betsveen the past teme morphemes Chapter 5 Aspect and Mood 5.1 Aspect 5.2 Aspectuai expressions in Mongotian 5.2.1 Perfect 5.2.2 Progressive 5.2.3 Habitua1 5.2.4 Continuative 5.2.5 The aspectual expression of the quasi-auiliary verbs 5.3 Mood and modaiity 5.3.1 Imperative mood 5.32 Optativemood 5.3 -3 Hortative mood 5.3.4 Permissive mood 5.3.5 Admonitivemood 5.3.6 The quasi-auxiliaries expressing mood and modality Chapter 6 Voice and Causative 6.1 Voice 6.2.1 Passivevoice 6.2.1 Reciprocal voice 6.2 Causative Chapter 7 Conclusions Re ferences PREFACE This is a study of Mongolian verb morphology on the bisof the modem language spoken in Imer Mongolia The main concem of the dissertation are the verb-formation processes. i-e. the derivational and idectional morphemes of the verbs. Our study. based on descriptive and theoretical advances made in modern linguistics. attempts a comprehensive survey of the existing literature and also covers a wide range issues concerning Mongolian verb morphology. It extends the analysis of the key areas of verb morphology by focusing on specific characteristics of some particular morphemes and supplying a broader range of data Another goal of the dissertation is to take a criticai view of the existing literature and to reveal important topics omitted from previous studies. Our analysis shows that previous studies are often either too narrow or too generai and so fail to capture some important derivational or inflectional feature of the Mongolian verb. The study is divided into seven chapters. Chapter one introduces the following issues. First, there is a brief introduction of the Mongolic languages and the dialect variations of Mongolian in which 1 present some of the problerns existing in the previous studies classifying both the Mongolic languages and the Mongolian dialects. Secondly. I review the studies on the Mongolian verb system. focusing on the two issues: verb denvation and inflection. The previous studies on verbs differ in various ways but their major difference is the varieci treatment of the voice and aspect suffixes among scholars. Third. I outline the theoretical frameworks for the dissertation. also by focusing on two issues: the basic morphological terms used in this dissertation and the basic pnnciples for distinguishing derivation from inflection. In the final two subsections in this chapter. I give the outline of Mongolian morphology and the brief description of the data and the transliteration king used in the thesis. Chapter two presents a discussion of verb derivation, focusing on the issue of the verb derived by suffixation. Suffixation is a productive way to form a new verb from various word-classes. By suffixation, a verb can be derived from a noun, adjective, verb, or adverb with various meanings. in this chapter 1 ddwith several different classes of the suffixes. narnely, suffixes that are added after nouns and adjectives. those that are added after verbs to form verbs, and those that are added across word-ciasses. There are aIso special suffixes to derive verbs from adverbs to form what are called sound irnitating or onomatopoeic words. Chapter three is a discussion of converbs. verbal nouns, and auxiliaries. Following Haspelrnath (1995). we view converbs as a nonfinite verb form whose main function is to mark adverbial subordination. After separating converbs by their semantic meaning into contextual and specialized converbs. and further distinguishing them by their subject references into same-subject and varying-subject converbs, we will describe the general meanings and the specid uses of each of the converb suffixes. The second section is a brief description of the verbal noun in Mongolian.