Differential object and subject marking in Khalkha, Buryat, and Kalmyk
Differential Object Marking (DOM)
In all three Mongolic languages, some direct objects are marked with overt accusative case marker and others remain unmarked, coinciding with the nominative case form. The basic correlation for this differential case marking can be explained by identifiability (cf. definiteness in SAE), i.e. direct objects occur with accusative case suffix (1)-(2) when the speaker and/or the hearer can identify the referent.
Khalkha:| (1) | Bat | Tuya-d | ene | oxin-yg | tanilcuul-san |
| I | Tuya-dloc | this | girl-acc | introduce-pc.pst | |
| ‘Bat introduced this girl to Tuya.’ | |||||
| (2) | Bat | Tuya-d | neg | oxin-yg | tanilcuul-san | |
| I | Tuya-dloc | a | girl-acc | know-pc.pst | ||
| ‘Bat introduced a girl to Tuya (and I know which girl)’ | ||||||
Non-specific and informationally irrelevant direct objects remain unmarked (3)–(4). Such use presents the semantics of the transitive verb as an activity, and not as an achievement (4).
| (3) | Bat | Tuya-d | neg | oxin | tanilcuul-san | |
| I | Tuya-dloc | a | girl | know-pc.pst | ||
| ‘Bat introduced a girl to Tuya (and I don’t know which girl)’ | ||||||
| (4) | Bi | nom | unš-san |
| I | book | read-pc.pst | |
| ‘I read a book’ or ‘I did book-reading’ | |||
In general, DOM is a well described cross-linguistic phenomenon across Romance, Turkic and some other languages. For more detailed view see the bibliography below.
Bibliography- Aissen, J. (2003). Differential object marking: Iconicity vs. economy. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 21, 435-483.
- Bossong, G. (1985). Empirische Universalienforschung. Differenzielle Objektmarkierung in den neuiranischen Sprachen. Tübingen: Narr.
- Guntsetseg, D. (2016). Differential Case Marking in Mongolian. Harrassowitz: Wiesbaden.
- von Heusinger, K. & Kornfilt, J. (2005). The case of the direct object in Turkish: Semantics, syntax and morphology. Turkic Languages 9, 3-44.
- de Hoop, H. & Malchukov, A. (2008). Case marking strategies. Linguistic Inquiry 39, 565-587.
Differential Subject Marking (DSM)
The three Mongolic languages exhibit DSM: subjects of subordinated clauses (adverbial, complement and relative clauses) occur in different case forms, namely in nominative, genitive and accusative. In detail, while in Burjat the alternation takes place predominantly between nominative and genitive subordinate subjects, Khalkha and Kalmyk show alternation of all three case forms.
Of the three essentially different types of DSM, semantically motivated, structurally motivated, and IS-motivated, Mongolic languages demonstrate the last two: DSM depends on the subordinated clause types and information structuring (Table below).
Table. Case alternations in different types of subordinate clauses:
| Clause type | Khalkha | Buryat | Kalmyk | |
| Relative clause: participial | nom / gen | nom / gen | nom / gen | |
| Complement clause | participial | nom / acc / gen | nom / gen | nom / gen / acc1 |
| complementizer | nom / acc | nom / gen /acc2 | nom / acc | |
| Adverbial clause | converbial | nom / gen | nom / acc / gen3 | |
| participial | ||||
| participial with postposition | ||||
| participial with particle | ||||
- only in direct object clause
- only in clauses with complementizers on the base of auxiliary ge-
- only in participial clauses with postpositions grammaticalized from relative clauses.
As the table shows, two alternation types are to be explained:
- Alternation between the two overt case forms, namely GEN vs. ACC, seems to have direct correlation with the clause types;
- alternation between unmarked (i.e. NOM) and overt case-marked (i.e. GEN and ACC) forms seems to be connected with the information structuring.
A. The alternation between gen vs. acc in Khalkha and Kalmyk correlates with the subordinate clause types, i.e. is structurally motivated. In Khalkha, gen is used in relative clauses, acc in adverbial clauses, in complement clauses both acc and gen are possible:
Khalkha:| (5) | Bi | Bat-yn | bič-sen | nom-yg | unš-san |
| I | Bat-gen | write-pc.pst | book | read-pc.pst | |
| ‘I read the book that Bat wrote.’ | |||||
| (6) | Bi | Bat-yn | / -yg | nom | bič-sen-ijg | med-ne | |
| I | Bat-gen / -acc | book | wrote.pst-acc | know-prs | |||
| ‘I know that Bat wrote a book.’ | |||||||
| (7) | Bi | Bat-yg | nom | bič-sen | gež | med-ne | |
| I | Bat-acc | book | wrote-pst | comp | know-prs | ||
| ‘I know that Bat wrote a book.’ | |||||||
| (8) | Bi | Bat-yg | ažil-d-aa | jav-magc | ger-ee | ceverle-ž | exel-sen |
| I | Bat-acc | work-dloc-refl | go-cv.imm.succ | home-refl | clean-cv.impf | start-pc.pst | |
| ‘‘I started to clean my home as soon as Bat went to work.’’ | |||||||
In Kalmyk, the DSM functions similarly to Khalkha: the type of the subordinate clause determines the concrete case of the dependent subject – gen or acc. The genitive is used in relative clauses, acc in adverbial clauses, in complement clauses both acc and gen are possible whereas acc occurs in the clauses of direct objects.
In Buryat the DSM is generalized to the opposition gen vs. nom in all structural types with the exception of bi-finite constructions with complement clauses:
| (9) | Namaye | iime | yüüme | x-eed | yere-be | geže | xen-š’ye | mede-be-güi |
| 1sg.acc | such | thing | do-cvb | come-past.3sg | comp | who-even | know-past-neg.3sg | |
| ‘Nobody knew that I did such a thing.’ | ||||||||
Accusative subjects in (6)-(9) were also analysed as an instance of ACI (accusativus cum infinitivo) (cf. Poppe 1951:106), also known as ECM (exceptional case marking) in Government Binding theory and explained by Raising-to-Object analysis: accusative marked subjects of subordinate clause are raised to direct objects of the main clause, e.g. in Englisch “I saw him go” (cf. Postal 1974).
B. The alternation between nom vs. gen/acc is determined in all three Mongolic languages by information structure. Embedded subjects that contain newly introduced referents or new topic of the discourse occur in unmarked nominative case (10). On the contrary, embedded subjects that refer the discourse-old topic, i.e. given topic (11) and (13) occur in overt cases, i.e. either in genitive or in accusative depending on the clause type.
Kalmyk:| (10) | Bi | klass-t-an | or-ž | ir-xlä | surhulč-nr | ködlmš | ke-häd | suu-na |
| I | classroom-dat.refl | enter-cv.impf come-cv.cond | student-pl | task | do-cv.prf | sit-prs | ||
| ‘When I entered the classroom, students sit doing their task.’ | ||||||||
| (11) | Nama-g | xärü | klass-ur | ir-xlä, | xoyr | küükn | har-an | örg-žä-nä |
| I-acc | back | classroom-dir come-cv.cond | two | girl | hand-refl | raise-prog-prs | ||
| ‘When I come back to the classroom, two girls are raising their hand’ [BA-264] | ||||||||
| (12) | 1953 | žil-in | xavr-ar | Stalin | ük-v. |
| 1953 | year-gen | spring-ins | Stalin | die-pst | |
| ‘In Spring 1953, Stalin died.’ [IL-60] | |||||
| (13) | Stalin-ig | ük-sn-ä | tuskar | ämtn-ä | sanlghn | xurdar | unt-l-ž | jov-la |
| Stalin-acc | die-pc.prf-gen | about | people-gen | remember | quick | sleep-caus-cv.impf | go-dir.evd | |
| ‘People quickly forgot Stalin died’ [IL-60] | ||||||||
Furthermore, subjects standing in contrastive focus occur also in nominative case form (14).
Khalkha:| (14) | Bi | ene | ažl-yg | xij-sn-ijg | darga | sajn | mede-ž | baj-gaa |
| I | this | work | do-pc.pst-acc | boss | good | know-cv.impf be-prs | ||
| ‘The boss knows that I (and not you or others) did this work’ | ||||||||
Seesing (2013: 52) provides a topicality scale that displays the correlation between differential subject marking and topicality.
Bibliography for more information:
- Guntsetseg, D. (2016). Differential Case Marking in Mongolian. Harrassowitz: Wiesbaden.
- Seesing, O. (2013). Die infiniten Temporalkonstruktionen im Kalmückischen. Harrassowitz Verlag:Wiesbaden.
- Skribnik (1988) = Скрибник Е.К. Полипредикативные синтетические предложения в бурятском языке [Non-finite clause combining in Buryat] . – Новосибирск: Наука.
- Skribnik & Daržaeva (2016): Скрибник Е.К., Даржаева Н.Б. Грамматика бурятского языка. Синтаксис сложного (полипредикативного) предложения. [The Buryat Grammar. Clause combining.] Т. 1. Улан-Удэ: БНЦ.
- Poppe, N. (1951). Khalkha-mongolische Grammatik, Wiesbaden: Steiner.
- Postal, P. M. (1974). On Raising. MIT Press. Cambridge.