Participles
Polyfunctional non-finite verbal forms known as participles in Mongolic languages also have, in addition to the verbal categories such as tense, aspect, and modality, nominal categories such as case and possessive declension. The majority of them can be used as attributes, complements, and adverbials as well as finite predicates.
The denotation “participle” is used predominantly by Russian and Mongolian linguists as well as in the comprehensive reference volume on Mongolic languages (cf. Janhunen 2003, 2012), whereas some German linguists (e.g. Poppe 1951, Bittigau 2003) use the denotation “verbal noun” (Germ. Verbalnomen).
The non-finite functions of participles as attributes, complements, and adverbials are clearly differentiated morphologically:| Attribute: | no agreement, hence no additional markers; | |||||
| Complement: | syntactic cases and possessive markers; | |||||
| Adverbial: | semantic cases or postpositions and possessive markers. | |||||
| denotations | Khalkha | Buryat | Kalmyk |
| perfective | -sAn | -hAn | -sn |
| future | -x | -xA | -x |
| habitual | -dAg | -dAg | -dg |
| imperfective | -(g)AA | -(g)AA | -(h)A |
| potential | -xAAr | -xAAr | -m |
| qualitative | -mAAr | -xAAr | − |
| passive | − | -(g)AAtAi | -AtA |
| resultative | − | -ngxAi | − |
| agentive (nomen agentis) | -gč | -gšA/ -g-AAšA | -gč |
The four common Mongolic participles (marked in bold in the table above) are the most frequent in all three languages and also most polyfunctional. They have functionally common characteristics, except for the future participle -x in Khalkha which occurs as finite predicate only in negated form, unlike the other three participles and also its counterparts in Kalmyk and Buryat.
The perfective (also past) participle refers to an action completed in the past. In all three languages it can function as:- attribute modifying a noun; in this function, -sAn/-hAn/-sn marks a relative tense (anteriority), e.g., in Kalmyk dav-sn žil ‘past/last year’ derived from dav- ‘pass by’;
- complements (subjects and objects) with different syntactic case markers:
-
subject with the participle in nominative, i.e., the unmarked form. In this case a personal possessive marker is obligatory, e.g., in Kalmyk :
(1) Orčul-s-n’ mini aav translate-pc.pst-poss.3 my grandfather ‘The person who has translated is my grandfather’ -
direct object with the participle in accusative; personal marking is possible, but not obligatory, e.g. in Kalmyk:
(2) Orčul-s-i-n’ mini aav med-nä translate-pc.pst-acc-poss.3 my grandfather know-prs ‘My grandfather knows the person who has translated’ -
indirect object in dative:
(3) Orčul-sn-d mini aav ikär xan-na translate-pc.pst-dat my grandfather much be_grateful-prs ‘My grandfather is grateful to the person who has translated’
-
subject with the participle in nominative, i.e., the unmarked form. In this case a personal possessive marker is obligatory, e.g., in Kalmyk :
-
adverbial by means of connectors such as semantic (adverbial) case markers (locative, ablative, instrumental, and comitative) and postpositions. Postpositions can also govern genitive, ablative, or comitative case; the case markers are placed on the participles, e.g., the Khalkha postposition ačaar ‘with the help of/thanks to’ requires the genitive marker on the preceding perfective participle (4):
(4) Pürevmaa fitness-eer xičeelle-sn-ij ačaar alx-dag bol-žee Pürevmaa fitness-ins exercise-pc.pst-gen thanks step-pc.hab become-prf ‘Thanks to doing fitness, Pürevmaa could walk (again, after an accident)’ - finite predicate denoting absolute past tense. In Khalkha, -sAn is the most neutral past tense form, e.g., Bi ene zurgijg zur-san ‘I painted this picture’; in Kalmyk, it is the factive past, often combined with the affirmative particle mön and its clitic -mn, e.g., tedn ir-s-mn ‘(it is the fact that) they came’; and in Buryat, only with the affirmative particle yüm, e.g., yere-hen yüm ‘s/he did come’
- attribute modifying a noun denoting a relative future tense (posteriority).
- complement making use of syntactic case markers, e.g., nominative, accusative, dative, and ablative, denoting posteriority or simultaneity.
- adverbial by means of connectors such as semantic case markers and postpositions, denoting posteriority or simultaneity.
- finite predicate denoting future, in Khalkha only as the negated future tense.
- attribute modifying a noun, denoting habituality in relative general present (general simultaneity), i.e., its tense interpretation depends on the tense of the main verb.
- complement making use of syntactic case markers, e.g., nominative, accusative, dative, and ablative.
- adverbial; in Khalkha the adverbial use of -dAg, unlike the past participle -sAn and the future participle -x, is limited only to clauses of causal semantics with postpositions, i.e., case markers are not involved in this function of -dAg (unlike Buryat and Kalmyk).
- finite predicate denoting habituality in general present tense.
- attribute modifying a noun and denoting a relative progressive-present tense (in Buryat only with a limited number of inherently durative verbs like bai- ‘be’ and yaba- ‘go’).
- complement making use of syntactic case markers, e.g., nominative, accusative, and dative. The construction with dative as a complement is only possible in Khalkha, i.e., Kalmyk does not exhibit such construction, and in Buryat, only negative forms are used this way.
- adverbial; like the habitual participle -dAg, the present participle -AA makes only use of postpositions and not of case markers (in Buryat also case markers, but only with negation).
- finite predicate denoting progressive-present tense, which means the action is currently continuing. Since it stands in relation to the speech act, it is in an absolute tense.
- The potential (-xAAr) and qualificational (-mAAr) participles of Buryat are frozen instrumental case forms of the future participle and the deverbal noun in -m respectively. They serve only as attributes or predicates, e.g., xeneišye magta-xaar beri ‘a daughter-in-law that can be praised by anyone’, seregte aba-maar morid ‘horses that are fit to be taken to war’, on-oo-güi-n’ xalagla-maar ‘It can be regretted that (he) did not hit (the target)’. The equivalent forms in Khalkha and Kalmyk are often analyzed as converbs in most grammatical descriptions (e.g., Sanžeev 1964, Janhunen 2003, 2012). In Khalkha, the potential -xAAr functions as adverbial converb, e.g., sonsogdo-xoor xelex ‘to say loudly that is audible’, whereas the qualitative -mAAr as attribute, e.g., unš-maar nom ‘a (good) book that one wants to read’. In Kalmyk, they can not function as attribute but as adverbial, e.g., ärä soŋsgd-mar kelx ‘say anything softly aloud (so that is barely audible)’. The original form in -m, potential participle, functions as attribute, adverbial, or a finite predicate but not a complement in Kalmyk, only as an attribute in Buryat.
- The passive or resultative participles are used as attributes, e.g., uy-aatai morin ‘a tethered horse’ in Buryat, or finite predicates, e.g., mörn-čn uy-ata ‘your horse is tethered’ in Kalmyk.
- The agentive participle also known as nomen agentis always encodes the performer of the action and is often lexicalized, e.g., in Kalmyk xars-gč ‘protector’ derived from xars- ‘protect’ or sur-gč ‘student’ in Khalkha from sur- ‘study’.
- -güj in Khalkha and Buryat, and uga or -go in Kalmyk are used for a neutral / general negation;
- es prepositional particle, in Khalkha and Buryat it is archaic, attested only in historical texts; in contrast, in Kalmyk its usage is determined by information-structural constraints.
- biš postpositional particle after nominal predicates; occurring with participles as finite predicates, it has contrastive meaning.