ᠮᠣᠩᠭᠤᠯ ᠲᠦᠷᠦᠯ ᠤᠨ ᠬᠡᠯᠡ .pdf

THE MONGOLIC LANGUAGES ROUTLEDGE LANGUAGE FAMILY SERIES Each volume provides a detailed, reliable account of every member language, or representative language of a particular family. Each account is a reliable source of data, arranged according to the natural system of classification: phonology, mor- phology, syntax, lexicon, semantics, dialectology and socio-linguistics. Each volume is designed to be the essential source of reference for a particular linguistic commu- nity, as well as for linguists working on typology and syntax. The Austronesian Languages of Asia and Madagascar Edited by Nikolaus Himmelmann individual chapters, the authors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data The Mongolic languages/edited by Juha Janhunen. p. cm. — (Routledge language family series ; 5) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Mongolian languages. I. Janhunen, Juha, 1952- II. Series. PL400 .M64 2003 494'.2—dc21 2002036793 ISBN 0–7007–1133–3 This edition published in the Taylor and, for the primary vowels: a e (non-high unrounded), o ö (non-high rounded), u ü (high rounded), and i ï (high unrounded). Certain secondary vowel quali- ties are indicated by the letters ä (low unrounded front), å (low rounded back), é (mid- high unrounded front), ó (rotationally modified *ö) and uch161:0130+6017 (rotationally modified *u). For a qualitatively neutralized reduced vowel in non-initial syllables, the letter e is used. Secondary articulation of consonants is indicated by the letters y (palatalization) and w (labialization). Capital letters, such as A U D G K N, stand for generalized morpho- phonemes and/or not fully specified archiphonemes. For indicating the different types of bond between elements within a word, a slightly revised variant of the system used by Abondolo (1998) for Uralic is applied. A consistent graphic distinction is made between compounding (p59), reduplication ( it was introduced imme- diately after the Proto-Mongolic stage in loanwords such as *shasin ‘religion’ (from Sanskrit), *shabi ‘disciple’ (through Chinese). Other segments, including a new strong labial stop (p) as well as two labial continuants ( f w), have been added later to the individual systems of several Modern Mongolic languages and dialects, where they still tend to retain a status of marginal phonemes. Generally, all the Modern Mongolic languages retain the Proto-Mongolic consonant system as the skeleton of their own synchronic systems. Due to the merger of the unrounded high vowels *ï *i in Late Pre-Proto-Mongolic, there briefly existed a distinction between the velars *k *g *x and a corresponding series of back velars or uvulars, of which the strong stop *q is the one most reliably attested. Although, technically speaking, the opposition *ki vs. *qi was present at exactly the Proto-Mongolic stage, its low functional load allows it to be ignored for most recon- structive purposes. It is true, the natural tendency to develop positional variants for the velar consonants depending on the vocalic environment is observable in several (though not all) Modern Mongolic languages, in which only the back vowels *a *o *u have conditioned the spirantization of the velars, as in Oirat ax ‘elder brother’ vs. ek ‘mother’ *ci and *di *ji were due to palatal assimilation, conditioned by the palatal quality of *i. Since, however, this assimilation was not confined to words with a palatal vocalism, it must have taken place only after the merger of the vowels *i and *ï *i. A possible order of all the processes involved would, then, be: (1) *kï *qï, (2) *ï *i, (3) *ti *di *ci *ji, (4) *qi *ki. The first three of these processes may be dated as Late Pre-Proto-Mongolic, while the last, involving the loss of the opposition between the velar and postvelar sets of consonants, was still going on in Proto-Mongolic. The Proto-Mongolic velar spirant *x, which also represented original Pre-Proto- Mongolic *p, was probably pronounced as a laryngeal [h], which was gradually being lost. The loss of medial intervocalic *x may, indeed, be regarded as Common Mongolic, for the segment is only attested in Written Mongol (gqh) as well as, occasionally, in Middle Mongol, as in *kaxan ‘emperor’ Written Mongol qaqhav, Middle Mongol kaxan (qahan) or ka’an vs. Common Mongolic *kaan. Initial *x was, however, regularly preserved in Middle Mongol, and direct reflexes of it are still synchronically present in two peripheries of the Mongolic family: Dagur in the northeast and the Gansu-Qinghai complex in the south, as in *xulaxan ‘red’ Middle Mongol xula’an (hula’an), Dagur xulaang, Mongghul fulaan vs. Common Mongolic *ulaan. Rather unexpectedly, initial *x is not reflected by the Written Mongol orthography. The loss of the intervocalic ‘laryngeal’ *x is, consequently, the main source of the long (double) vowels in the Mongolic languages. In the case of two identical vowels, the contraction automatically produced a long monophthong, but two different vowels yielded initially a diphthongoid. Diphthongoids ending in the vowels *u *ü are preserved as such only in Dagur, while elsewhere they have undergone monophthongization, as in *naxur ‘lake’ Dagur naur vs. Khalkha nuur. Diphthongoids ending in the vowel *i () Proto-Mongolic *sayin ‘good’ Khalkha saing vs. Oirat sään. In accordance with their contractive origin, the diphthongoids of the modern languages are normally reflected in Written Mongol as bisyllabic sequences (with inter- vocalic gqhj). In a few items, however, Written Mongol has simple vowel sequences ending in u. In the modern languages, such sequences are indistinguishable from the corresponding contractive diphthongoids, but the question is whether there was a diachronic difference. There are several possibilities: Proto-Mongolic may actually have had such vowel sequences, or the sequences may have contained an intervocalic conso- nant not indicated in the Written Mongol orthography, or the vowel may represent the vocalized reflex of an original syllable-final consonant (possibly *w). The evidence remains inconclusive, but it is perhaps safest to make a distinction between *x and Ø (zero) when reconstructing the sources of the diphthongoids, e.g. Written Mongol vgulav ‘cloud’ for *exüle/n vs. taugae ‘history’ for *te(Ø)üke. A related question concerns the origin of the diphthongoids ending in *i. In final posi- tion, such diphthongoids are rendered as simple vowel sequences in Written Mongol. Since this is a regular convention, the sequences may be reconstructed as contractive diphthongoids of the normal type, e.g. Written Mongol bui for *buyi ~ *büyi [copula], talai ‘sea’ for *dalayi Common Mongolic dalai. It cannot, however, be ruled out that the language originally had a distinction between *x and Ø also before the vowel PROTO-MONGOLIC 7 *i ( Common Mongolic *naima/n. WORD STRUCTURE The most important phonotactic restriction in Proto-Mongolic was formed by vowel har- mony, which allowed only either back or front vowels to occur within a phonological word. Palatal harmony was originally the only phenomenon that conditioned the occur- rence of the vowels *a *u (back) vs. *e *ü (front) in non-initial syllables, as in *kara ‘black’ vs. *nere ‘name’, *olan ‘many’ vs. *mören ‘river’, *kura ‘rain’ vs. *üre ‘seed’, *casu/n ‘snow’ vs. *temür ‘iron’, *xodu/n ‘star’ vs. *xödü/n ‘feather’, *ulus ‘people’ vs. *xüsü/n ‘hair’. There seem to have been no exceptions to the palatal harmony in Proto- Mongolic, which means that the phenomenon might also be described by postulating a markedness hierarchy, or, alternatively, a set of neutralized archiphonemes (*A*U). An important phenomenon that has affected the manifestations of vowel harmony in many Modern Mongolic languages, including Mongol proper and all of its northern and eastern neighbours (Khamnigan Mongol, Buryat, Dagur), is vowel rotation, in which the palato-velar pairs have become rotated so that the palatal members (*ü *ö *e) have received a raised tongue position in comparison with their velar counterparts (*u *o *a). At the same time, the palatal members have undergone velarization, resulting in the replacement of the original palatal harmony (back vs. front) by an apertural harmony (low vs. high). During an intermediate stage in the process (as in modern Khalkha), the original back vowels seem also to have been accompanied by a varying degree of pha- ryngealization. Since vowel rotation has not necessarily removed any oppositions, it is difficult to establish whether it may already have been present as in incipient tendency in Proto-Mongolic. In the modern languages it has, however, often resulted in various paradigmatic neutralizations. Apart from palatal harmony there was a partial labial harmony (labial attraction), because of which the non-high rounded vowels *o *ö of non-initial syllables were not allowed to be combined with any of the vowels *a *e *u *ü of the initial syllable. This restriction was, already in Proto-Mongolic, being complemented by another rule which assimilated the vowels *a *e of non-initial syllables into *o *ö after an initial syllable also containing *o *ö, as in *kola ‘distant’ *kolo, *köke ‘blue’ *kökö. Owing to these phenomena, it is difficult to distinguish in the comparative material the combinations *o-a vs. *o-o and *ö-e vs. *ö-ö. It is generally assumed that the original state is best pre- served in (Preclassical) Written Mongol, but it remains unclear whether Written Mongol is really chronologically representative of Proto-Mongolic for this detail. A similar problem is connected with the combination *e-ü, which is generally pre- served in the language underlying Written Mongol, as in tamur ‘iron’ for *temür. It seems that Written Mongol in such cases represents a stage that is best identified as Late Pre-Proto-Mongolic, while Proto-Mongolic was characterized by the regressive assimi- lation of *e-ü into *ö-ü, e.g. *temür *tömür. In the modern languages, owing to the reduction and neutralization of most single vowels in non-initial syllables, the reflexes of *e-ü *ö-ü have generally merged with those of *ö-e *ö-ö. None of these phenomena have exact back-vocalic analogies, but in sequences containing an intervocalic *x the combinations *ö-e (front) and *o-a (back) are indistinguishable from *ü-e and *u-a, respectively, as in *tuxa (or *toxa) ‘number’, *büxe (or *böxe) ‘shaman’. 8 THE MONGOLIC LANGUAGES Importantly, the vowels *a *o *u vs. *e *ö *ü were all distinguished in non-initial syllables following *i ( Bonan yersung vs. Common Mongolic *yesü/n, *caxarsu/n ‘paper’ Khamnigan Mongol caarhu/n vs. Common Mongolic *caasu/n. In some cases, a vowel seems to have been inserted into such a cluster, as in *mölsü/n ‘ice’ *mölisü/n Khamnigan Mongol mulihu/n vs. Common Mongolic *mösü/n. In other cases the cluster can be reconstructed on the basis of Written Mongol, while the spoken languages show an irregular correspondence of single consonants, as in Written Mongol talbi- for *talbi- ‘to place’ Dagur (*)tali- vs. Common Mongolic *tabi-. The final segment of a stem determined the stem type, on which a number of suffix- initial morphophonological alternations depended. The basic division was into vowel stems and consonant stems. Before suffixes beginning with a vowel, normally *i, vowel stems required a connective consonant, normally *y, as in *aka ‘elder brother’ : acc. *aka/y-i. On the other hand, before suffixes beginning with a consonant, consonant stems required the connective vowels *U (*u *ü) or *i ( *UU), was added to consonant stems, e.g. *nom ‘book’ : pl. *nom/u.d. However, most stems ending in the consonants *n *l *r lost the final segment before the suffix *.d, with no connective vowel involved, e.g. *kan ‘prince’ : pl. *ka.d, suggesting that these final con- sonants may originally have been suffixes. This analysis is particularly likely in the case of the stems ending in the unstable */n, which regularly formed their plural by the suffix *.d, e.g. *mori/n ‘horse’ : pl. *mori.d. The same is true of polysyllabic stems ending in the derivative complex *.sU/n, e.g. *nugu.su/n ‘duck’ : pl. *nugu.d. A third plural suffix, with a more restricted distribution, was *.n, which regularly replaced the stem-final derivative element *.( y)i (possibly *.i form their plural by the suffix *.s, e.g. *noka.i ‘dog’ : pl. *noka.s, but evidence from Middle Mongol and Preclassical Written Mongol shows that the original pattern is likely to have involved the use of *.n, i.e. *noka.i : pl. *noka.n. 12 THE MONGOLIC LANGUAGES Already in Proto-Mongolic, the basic plural suffixes were being complemented by a set of secondary suffixes. Some of the latter were simply semantically redundant reduplications or combinations of the basic suffixes (double plurals), e.g. *.d/U.d ( *.dUUd ), *.s/U.d ( *.sUUd ). Others may be analysed as combinations of original stem-final segments or syllables with the plural formative */U.d, e.g. Common Mongolic *.nUUd, *.ciUd ( *.ciUl). A different type of innovation was involved in the element *.nAr, also *.nA.d or *.nar/U.d ( *.nar.UUd), which was added to nouns denoting humans or deities, e.g. *aka ‘elder brother’ : pl. *aka.nar, *tenggeri ‘god’ : pl. *tenggeri.ner. Owing to the diversification of the plural suffixes, the original rules of complementarity were lost, often allowing several different plurals to be formed of a single nominal stem. Patterns of the type *mori/n (*mori.n) : *mori.d and *noka.( y)i : *noka.n suggest that plural formation may originally have been part of a more general system of nominal classes, in which both the singular and the plural were marked by distinct class suffixes. What the semantic basis of this possible Pre-Proto-Mongolic class system may have been, remains to be clarified, but in any case it is obvious that the distribution of the plural suffixes was not only phonologically conditioned. It is unclear what the exact function of the plural originally was. As in the Modern Mongolic languages, the basic (singular) form of nouns in Proto-Mongolic was able to function as an unmarked (unspecified) plural. The use of the actual plural suffixes seems to have been limited to cases in which plurality was not otherwise obvious from the context. An interesting perspective into the prehisto