Negation in Mongolic

Abstract

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.

The typology of external splits

“…Splits in anti-government: primary lexeme: lexemic split. Here we examine Middle Mongol (thirteenth to fourteenth centuries); the data come from Benjamin Brosig's (2015) survey of the Mongolic family, and personal communications with him (May 2021). The basic pattern of anti-government involves negation.…”

Khitan studies I. The graphs of the Khitan Small Script. 2. The vowels

“…55 The relation of *eb > ebde with Mo ese the negation particle and ese-the negative verb will not be treated here. See Brosig (2015) (1970, p. 304), Vovin (2007, pp. 197-198) 58 To Mo qaga-ʻto closeʼ.…”