This paper attempts to give a functional overview of negation in the Mongolic language family. In Early Middle Mongol, standard, prohibitive and perhaps ascriptive negation were coded by the preverbal negators ese for perfective/past, ülü for imperfective/non-past and büü for most moods including imperatives. It contrasted with the locative-existential-possessive negator ügei, which could also negate results and constituents. In most modern Mongolic languages, ügei made inroads into standard and ascriptive negation, competing with busi ‘other’ for ascriptive negation starting from Late Middle Mongol. Possessive constructions, while always based on ügei, are expressed through a range of different syntactic patterns, and a new locative-existential negator alga developed in one area. Newly developed verbal negators include the broadly used former resultative verbal negator -üüdei, and -sh, a more restricted reflex of busi. The change of negator position had consequences for its scope and interaction with other categories, which are discussed in some detail for Khalkha. While prohibitives always remained preverbal, preventives emerged from declaratives, acquiring modal characteristics.

Past tense forms of spoken Khalkha Mongolian distinguish between established (-sang) and non-established knowledge, which is then either based on direct (-laa) or indirect (-jee) evidence. Time of acquisition thus determines whether information source is marked, though vivid recollection (-laa) and deferred realization (-jee) overrule it. Conversely, attempted recollection in questions (-l=uu) doesn't presuppose sensory perception. A fourth suffix (-v) is used if well-established events still surprise the speaker. These suffixes may also be used in a discontinuous fashion to refer to the future and then modally qualify predictions as inevitable (-sang), apprehended [but preventable] (-v), based on sensory evidence (-laa) or inferred (-jee). The distinction between unsourced -sang and sourced -laa/-jee is thus not about factual stance, but codes the extent to which information is consolidated in memory. for comments on the draft of this chapter, to all my informants for their enormous contribution, and to all who supported me during this stay and later on. My research was financed by Stockholm University as my employer and the Sven och Dagmar Saléns stiftelse who funded my 7-month stay as a visiting researcher at the National University of Mongolia in Ulaanbaatar with 53270 SEK.

Shamanism is an ancient religion that Mongolians believe in. In Shaman music, divine song is an important form. Shaman divine songs are not formed naturally; rather, they have closely relationship with Mongolian folk songs. In this paper, the genetic relationship between Khorchin Shaman divine song and Khorchin folk songs and dance will be analyzed.

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