[Lexicog] honorific horse

[Patrick Chew]

Simon:

	Here's the skinny on  /morilo-x/.

(I'm ad-hoc marking transcribed modern Khalkha Mongolian with //, the 
modern Cyrillic with <>, and Classical/Written Mongolian with *. I've 
tried to  mark morpheme boundaries when relevant.)

/morilo-kh/ <морил-ох>(*morila-qu)
	1. to mount a horse (obsolete)
	2. to leave or set out for (honorific)
	3. to die (honorific)
	4. imperfect converb used with certain other verbs as a polite imperative

(As far as I could tell, no semantics of being or being at, c.f. /bol/ 
and /bai-kh/.)

"normal, non-honorific" instantiations:
	1. to ride a horse (go by horse):
		a. /mor' una-kh/ <морь уна-х> (*mori unu-qu)
			lit. horse be-astride
		b. /morior yav-akh/ <мориор ява-х> (*mori iyer yabu-qu)
			lit. by-horse go
	2. to leave or set out for:
		a. gar-akh <гар-ах> (*Gar-qu)
	3. to die:
		a. /ükhe-kh/ <үхэ-х> (*üke-kü)
	4. polite imperative/request:
		/[verb]-(G)AArAi/ <~(г)аарай/ ~(г)ээрэй/ ~(г)оорой/ ~(г)өөрэй> 
(*~-ğarai/*-gerei)

	Definitely,your statement about Mongolian honorifics not being as 
pervasive as in Japanese (and Korean) or Tibetan is valid. From  what I 
can also dredge up from my rusty memory, a large amount of Mongolian 
honorifics centers around religious items/activities and somewhat 
toitems/events that would have arisen between the aristocracy and the 
commonfolk, i.e. the use of /morilo-kh/ as the verb for "to set 
out/leave", instead of /gar-akh/, if the subject were a /noyon/ ("prince").

	Definitely there are levels of politeness built into the verbal 
morphology, but nowhere near as extensive as in Japanese or Korean, i.e. 
Mongolian imperatives have three levels of politeness only:
	1. abrupt ([verbstem]-0)
	2. mild([verbstem]-(g/i)AAch)
	3. softened ([verbstem]-(g)AArAi)
I can't quite recall any examples of honorific/humble register 
differenced lexical replacement in Mongolian, like found in Tibetan, 
Japanese, and Korean.SO, definitely, a prince still has  a /mor'/
	The only overt 'honorific' marker that comes to mind parallels the 
Japanese <-san/-sama> and Korean <-nim> in certain cases: /-guai/ 
<-гуай>, e.g. /Baatar-guai/ (esteemed/Mr. Baatar), /lam(ba)-guai/ (lama 
with honorific), etc.

	As for the Turkic langauges, other than using a more Arabo-Persian 
register of vocabulary (akin to the English use of 
Latin/Greek/Norman-based vocabulary for higher registered items), there 
is very little in the way of honorifics that I can recall. The only 
concrete examples that I can point to is the distinctions for second 
person, i.e. use of "plural" form to indicate politeness, c.f. German 
<Sie>, etc., and a very restricted use of the plural morpheme in the 
Qarluq/Karluk Turkic languages (Uzbek, Uyghur...) where the 
non-canonical placement of the plural *after* any possessive marking of 
a close family member of older stature (father, mother, grandparents, 
uncles, aunts, etc.) marks some honorific semantics, e.g. bâbâ-m-lär 
(grandfather-Px(1ps)-Pl/Hon) 'my esteemed grandfather' vs. bâbâ-lär-im 
(grandfather-Pl-Px(1ps)) 'my grandfathers'.

	Getting back to /morilo-x/, looking at the morphology of the verb 
itself shows that it's of a *very* early strate of the language, since 
it uses the rather ossified -la- denominal verbalizing particle attached 
to the noun *mori "horse". The use of this verbalizing particle is still 
productive/prevalent/prominent in Turkic languages, e.g. söz (word) > 
söz-lä- (to speak), ish (work) > ish-lä- (to work), etc., and can be 
found with diminished scope in verbs found in Tungusic languages, 
primarily Manju, with the same cognate being used as *the* word for 'to 
ride a horse' - /mori-la-mbi/.

	Hope this helps.

cheers,
-Patrick

Simon Wickham-Smith wrote:
> hi David -
> 
> 
> On 10 Sep 2005, at 17:57, lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com 
> <mailto:lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com> wrote:
>> Interesting. I hadn't heard about horses being part of a verb to go. 
>> Makes plenty of sense, though. And even of a verb meaning be! Is it an 
>> honorific be?
> 
> 
> you know, my Mongolian is pretty rusty and I can't be 100% sure whether 
> it's honorific.  Mongolian doesn't I think have much honorific 
> vocabulary in the sense that Japanese or Tibetan does (can anyone out 
> there clarify Altaic/Turkic honorifics, please...?) but I would say that 
> /morilox/ is used for esteemed persons.  But the Mongolian level of 
> equiphilia is so intense that maybe it's a generalised word.  Unlike 
> Tibetan, for sure, there is no differentiation between different 
> people's horses - I have a /mori/ and the Dalai Lama also has a /mori/.
> 
> Si



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