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The Past Tenses of the Mongolian Verb Empirical Approaches to Linguistic Theory

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The Past Tenses of the Mongolian Verb Empirical Approaches to Linguistic Theory The Past Tenses of the Mongolian Verb Empirical Approaches to Linguistic Theory Managing Editor Brian D. Joseph The Ohio State University, USA Editorial Board Artemis Alexiadou, University of Stuttgart, Germany Harald Baayen, University of Alberta, Canada Pier Marco Bertinetto, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy Kirk Hazen, West Virginia University, Morgantown, USA Maria Polinsky, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA VOLUME 1 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/ealt The Past Tenses of the Mongolian Verb Meaning and Use By Robert I. Binnick LEIDEN • BOSTON 2012 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Binnick, Robert I. The past tenses of the Mongolian verb : meaning and use / by Robert I. Binnick. p. cm. — (Empirical approaches to linguistic theory; 1) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-21429-3 (alk. paper) 1. Mongolian language—Verb. 2. Grammar, Comparative and general—Tense. I. Title. II. Series. PL473.B56 2012 494’.2356—dc23 2011035786 ISSN 2210-6243 ISBN 978 90 04 21429 3 Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. For Sodnomdorj Gongor and for all those who have in one way or another through the years encouraged my interest in the Mongolian language, not least: James Bosson Lucia Hammar John Krueger Nicholas Poppe Wayne Schlepp Tserenchunt Legden Yidamjab Meng CONTENTS Editorial Foreword ............................................................................ ix Preface ................................................................................................. xi Acknowledgments .............................................................................. xv Conventions and Transcription ...................................................... xvii Abbreviations ..................................................................................... xxi I. The Problem of the Mongolian Past Tenses ........................... 1 1. The Mongolian Past Tenses .................................................. 1 1.1. The Verbal Systems of the Mongolic Languages ...... 1 1.2. The Problem of the Past Tenses .................................. 10 2. Semantic Theories .................................................................. 14 2.1. Theories Based on Tense and Aspect ......................... 14 2.2. The Finite Indicative Verbs .......................................... 20 2.3. The Participles ................................................................ 25 2.4. Metric (Degrees of Remoteness) Theories of the -jee and -lee Tenses ........................................................ 33 3. Toward A Pragmatic Theory ................................................ 37 3.1. Discourse Functions ...................................................... 37 3.2. The Evidential ................................................................. 40 3.3. The Modality of -v ......................................................... 46 3.4. The Inferential ................................................................ 50 3.5. Chuluu’s Critique .......................................................... 54 II. Use and Interpretation of the Past Tenses in the Spoken Language ....................................................................................... 61 1. Evidential and Inferential ..................................................... 61 1.1. The Oppositionof Evidentiality and Inferentiality ... 61 1.2. Inferential -jee ................................................................ 62 1.3. Evidential -lee ................................................................. 70 1.4. -sen in speech ................................................................. 74 2. Distal and Proximal ............................................................... 79 2.1. Distal and Proximal ....................................................... 79 2.2. Future -lee ....................................................................... 82 2.3. The Pragmatics of Immediacy ..................................... 88 2.4. Spoken -v and the Past Tenses in Questions ............ 92 viii contents 3. Deictic and Anaphoric ........................................................ 102 3.1. Reference Times ........................................................... 102 3.2. Definite, Deictic, and Anaphoric Tenses ................. 105 3.3. An Implicative Hierarchy ........................................... 108 III. Use and Interpretation of the Past Tenses in the Written Language ..................................................................................... 113 1. Spoken and Written Language ........................................... 113 1.1. Competing Grammatical Systems ............................. 113 1.2. The Non-equivalence of the Written Tenses .......... 116 1.3. The Language of the Internet and Levels of Usage 122 2. The Past Tenses in Writing ................................................ 132 2.1. Written -v ...................................................................... 132 2.2. -sen and -sen baina ...................................................... 138 2.3. -jee and -sen baina ....................................................... 140 2.4. Distal -lee ....................................................................... 145 IV. The Discourse Functions of the Tenses ................................. 147 1. The Functions of the Tenses in Discourse and Text ...... 147 1.1. The Functions of Utterances ...................................... 147 1.2. The Three Levels of Discourse Coherence ............... 149 2. The Functions of the Past Tenses ...................................... 161 2.1. Past Tenses and Temporal Reference ....................... 161 2.2. Past Tenses and Grounding ....................................... 171 2.3. Past Tenses and The Topics of Threads ................... 188 2.4. The Paragraph ............................................................... 195 3. The Functions of the Past Tenses in Various Genres .... 198 3.1. Meaning, Use and Genre ............................................ 198 3.2. Diegetic and Mimetic Genres .................................... 202 3.3. Genre and Tenses ........................................................ 207 3.4. Past Tenses in the Various Genres ........................... 209 Remarks in Lieu of a Conclusion ................................................... 215 Appendix ............................................................................................. 221 List of Works Cited ........................................................................... 223 Index .................................................................................................... 229 EDITORIAL FOREWORD The present volume,The Past Tense of the Mongolian Verb. Meaning and Use, by Robert Binnick, inaugurates a new series by Brill, entitled “Empirical Approaches to Linguistic Theory”. I am proud to be the managing editor of the series, and am joined in this enterprise by a strong team of editorial board members: Artemis Alexiadou, Harald Baayen, Pier Marco Bertinetto, Kirk Hazen, and Maria Polinsky. The goal of this series is to offer contributions to our understand- ing of language in general—the key desideratum of linguistic theory— through highly empirically based studies. The series is eclectic as to theory and does not privilege any particular theoretical framework over any other. We editors expect that each volume will advance our knowledge of how human language works through solid theoretically sophisticated description and through empirical testing of theoretical constructs and claims. Dr. Binnick is particularly well known for decades of work on tense and on Mongolian, so this study represents a joining of these two areas of his expertise. In this case, Mongolian provides the empirical basis, and the realization and value of temporal reference constitute the the- oretical constructs that are tested by the Mongolian data. We envision that the series will consist mainly of monographic research studies, but do not rule out the possibility of volumes that are focused collections of papers on a common theme. We look forward to seeing many volumes appear under this imprint in the years to come. Brian D. Joseph EALT Series Managing Editor Columbus, Ohio USA 1 August 2011 PREFACE One of the interesting features of the Mongolian language is the existence of four different past tense forms of the verb. To translate ‘came’, for example, one can choose (in the written language based on Khalkha Mongolian) between ирэв irev, ирлээ irlee, иржээ irjee, and ирсэн irsen. Textbooks and reference grammars have contained various accounts of the differences between these endings, generally vague, sometimes mutually contradictory, and ultimately inadequately informative concerning this significant
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