25.4546, Diss: Middle Mongolian, Peripheral Mongolian, Oirat; Historical Ling, Lang Documentation, Semantics, Syntax, Text/Corpus Ling: Brosig: 'Aspect, Evidentiality and Tense in Mongolian...'

Thu Nov 13 04:11:39 UTC 2014

LINGUIST List: Vol-25-4546. Wed Nov 12 2014. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 25.4546, Diss: Middle Mongolian, Peripheral Mongolian, Oirat; Historical Ling, Lang Documentation, Semantics, Syntax, Text/Corpus Ling: Brosig: 'Aspect, Evidentiality and Tense in Mongolian...'

Moderators: Damir Cavar, Indiana U <damir at linguistlist.org>
            Malgorzata E. Cavar, Indiana U <gosia at linguistlist.org>

Reviews: reviews at linguistlist.org
Anthony Aristar <aristar at linguistlist.org>
Helen Aristar-Dry <hdry at linguistlist.org>
Sara Couture, Indiana U <sara at linguistlist.org>

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

Do you want to donate to LINGUIST without spending an extra penny? Bookmark
the Amazon link for your country below; then use it whenever you buy from
Amazon!

USA: http://www.amazon.com/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlist-20
Britain: http://www.amazon.co.uk/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlist-21
Germany: http://www.amazon.de/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlistd-21
Japan: http://www.amazon.co.jp/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlist-22
Canada: http://www.amazon.ca/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlistc-20
France: http://www.amazon.fr/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlistf-21

For more information on the LINGUIST Amazon store please visit our
FAQ at http://linguistlist.org/amazon-faq.cfm.

Editor for this issue: Danuta  Allen <danuta at linguistlist.org>
================================================================

Visit LL's Multitree project for over 1000 trees dynamically generated
from scholarly hypotheses about language relationships:
          http://multitree.linguistlist.org/

Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 23:09:09
From: Benjamin Brosig [benjamin at ling.su.se]
Subject: Aspect, Evidentiality and Tense in Mongolian: From Middle Mongol to Khalkha and Khorchin

E-mail this message to a friend:
http://linguistlist.org/issues/emailmessage/verification.cfm?iss=25-4546.html&submissionid=35977777&topicid=14&msgnumber=1

Institution: Stockholm University 
Program: Department of Linguistics 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2014 

Author: Benjamin Brosig

Dissertation Title: Aspect, Evidentiality and Tense in Mongolian: From Middle
Mongol to Khalkha and Khorchin 

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics
                     Language Documentation
                     Semantics
                     Syntax
                     Text/Corpus Linguistics

Subject Language(s): Mongolian, Middle (xng)
                     Mongolian, Peripheral (mvf)
                     Oirat (xal)

Dissertation Director(s):
Östen Dahl
Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

Dissertation Abstract:

This doctoral thesis consists of an introduction and four separately published
papers. The papers, detailed below, are synchronic descriptions of aspect,
evidentiality and tense in three Mongolic varieties. In the introduction, a
first attempt is made to track the diachronic development of these varieties
plus Kalmyk in their respective areal contexts.

1. The aspect-evidentiality system of Middle Mongol. Ural-Altaic Studies, 13.
(forthc.)
Middle Mongol has a fairly complex aspectual system, consisting of mostly
periphrastic constructions built up from converbal, participial and final
suffixes and two different stative copular auxiliaries. These express
progressivity, habituality, genericity, perfectivity, perfect and
resultativity for present and past. Present progressivity and resultativity
are expressed by two constructions each that differ in aspectual scope and/or
actional properties. The three past tense suffixes mark factual, firsthand and
secondhand information. This evidential trichotomy is restricted to the
perfective aspect, while other aspect forms only receive firsthand or
secondhand marking.

2. The tense-aspect system of Khorchin Mongolian. In: P. Suihkonen & L. Whaley
(eds.), Typology of Languages of Europe and Northern and Central Asia.
Benjamins. (forthc.)
Khorchin, a Mongolian dialect of eastern Inner Mongolia, has a tense-aspect
system slightly simpler than Middle Mongol and considerably simpler than
Khalkha. While it can express the time stability of ongoing events with many
nuances, present habitual and generic events are not distinguished. The
existence of a present perfect category is doubtful, but in any case it does
not extend to the past as participle-auxiliary-combinations do not occur.
Grammaticalized evidentiality was lost. These developments can be understood
in their areal context.

3. Aspect and epistemic notions in the present tense system of Khalkha
Mongolian. Acta Linguistica Petropolitana. (forthc.)
Spoken Khalkha Mongolian has five non-finite aspect markers, the Progressive,
Continuative, Habitual, Perfect, and Prospective. They mainly combine with the
three suffixes  n,  aa and  dag. On its own,  n expresses an instantiated
potential or neutral future and  aa combines epistemic possibility and
resultativity. When combined with aspect markers, though, they express the
evidential values of direct vs. indirect perception. The suffix  dag expresses
habitual and generic meaning. It can take other aspect markers into its scope.
Next to its main use, it can refer to unique past events that surprise by
diverging from the normal course of events. Finite uses of the converbal and
participial suffixes -aad and -h are discussed as well.

4. Factual vs. evidential? - The past tense forms of spoken Khalkha Mongolian.
In: A. Foolen, H. de Hoop, & G. Mulder (eds.), Empirical Approaches to
Evidentiality. Benjamins. (under review)
The basic past tense suffixes in spoken Khalkha are the highly frequent -sang,
the frequent -laa, -jee and the peripheral -v. The basic opposition is between
established knowledge (-sang) and non-established (mostly new) knowledge,
which is differentiated into firsthand (-laa) and non-firsthand sources
(-jee). This adds the factor “time of acquisition” to “source of information.”
Due to its paradigmatic role, -sang seems to connotate factual, reliable
information. In declaratives, -w is used for events that surprised the speaker
in the past. All past markers have interrogative and future uses that reflect
their evidential properties.

----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-25-4546	
----------------------------------------------------------
Visit LL's Multitree project for over 1000 trees dynamically generated
from scholarly hypotheses about language relationships:
          http://multitree.linguistlist.org/