Possessive markers
The Mongolic languages have a system of marking referential relations between clause constituents and either i) speech act participants (personal possessive markers) or ii) the sentence subject (reflexive possessive markers).
1. The personal possessive markers are developed from the genuine possessive pronouns (genitive pronouns) like Khalkha minii ‘my’, Kalmyk mini, Buryat minii, (Janhunen 2003: 19) (see Table below). In all three languages, they behave as clitics, although in Khalkha orthography they are written separately from the word they modify, and in Kalmyk and Buryat together. They do not undergo vowel harmony but cannot have their own syllabic stress.
| Personal features |
Khalkha |
Buryat |
Kalmyk |
| 1 sg |
min’ |
-mni |
-m |
| 1 pl |
maan’ |
-mnai |
-mdn |
| 2 sg |
čin’ |
-šni |
-čn / čn’ |
| 2 pl / sg.hon |
tan’ |
-tnai |
-tn |
| 3 sg / pl |
n’ |
-n’ |
-n’ |
The reflexive-possessive markers establish the relation between a clause constituent and the clause subject. In contrast to the personal possessive markers, they can occur only with non-subject constituents (except for dependent clause subject, see below).
In all three languages, the reflexive markers are used irrespective of the number – singular or plural – of possessors of all persons. They are:
- in Khalkha: -AA (-gAA after long vowel) and -xAA with genitive case;
- in Buryat: -AA (-gAA after short vowel), -n after ablative suffix;
- in Kalmyk: the basic form -An (-hAn after double-vowel-stems) and its variants. The full form -(h)An replaces the accusative case marker in DOs, its short variant -n is used with the ablative, instrumental, and directive, and its extended form -rn with the comitative case. In the genitive case, the reflexive-possessive suffix -An is assimilated to the palatalized -n’, e.g. ek ‘mother’ in the accusative ek-än ‘one’s mother’, ek-äs-n ‘from one’s mother’, ek-lä-rn ‘with one’s mother’ and ek-in-n' ‘of one’s mother’.
Table 2. Reflexive possessive markers
| language / stem |
C |
V |
| Khalkha |
-AA (-x-AA in genitive) |
-g-AA (long V) |
| Buryat |
-AA, -n in ABL |
-g-AA (short V) |
| Kalmyk |
-An (with variants: -n in ABL, INS, DIR and -rn in COM, -n’ in GEN) |
-hAn (double V) |
After the stems with the final unstable -n, the reflexive marker -AA/n in Khalkha, -g-AA in Buryat, and -h-An in Kalmyk is used directly after the plain stem, and the unstable -n is regularly lost, e.g. mor’/morin ‘horse’ in Khalkha in the dative morin-d-oo ‘on one’s horse’, kövün ‘boy’ in Kalmyk in the accusative kövü-h-än ‘one’s boy’.
Furthermore, in Kalmyk, if direct objects, which usually occur with an accusative case suffix, need a reflexive possessive suffix, then the accusative case suffix is deleted, e.g. in Kalmyk:
| (1) | Dorž | degtr-än | (*degtr-i-hän) | umš-v.
|
| Dorž | book-rfl | book-acc-refl | read-pc.pst-aff
|
| ‘Dorž read his book’ |
In Khalkha and Buryat, direct objects that express kinship and friendship relations can occur with both accusative and reflexive possessive suffixes, otherwise only with a reflexive suffix:
| (2) | Dorž | eej-ijg-ee | duud-san.
| Khalkha
|
| Dorž | mother-acc-rfl | call-pc.pst
| |
| ‘Dorž called his mother’ | |
| (3) | Dorž | gar-aa | *gar-yg-aa | ugaa-san.
| Khalkha
|
| Dorž | hand-rfl | hand-acc-rfl | wash-pc.pst
| |
| ‘Dorž washed his hands’ | |
The scope of reflexivization is limited by one clause, with one exception. In different-subject constructions the main clause subject can “extend” its reflexivization to the dependent clause subject, although other NPs in the dependent clause already take their reflexivization from their own subject, e.g. in Buryat:
| (4) | Tuya | axa-in-gaa | nom-oo | unša-x-iye-n’ | xül’ee-gee
|
| Tuya | brother-gen-refl | book-refl | read-pc.fut-acc-3poss | wait-pc.pst.3sg
|
| ‘Tuya waited that HER older brother reads HIS book’ |
3. Both personal and reflexive possessive markers can be combined with different parts of speech. With nouns, these markers have a default possessive reading. Other functions are:
- with pronouns or with proper names the personal possessive particles express emphatic personal closeness:
| (5) | Khalkha | Buryat | Kalmyk
|
| či | min’ | ši-mni | bi-čn
|
| you | 1psg.poss | you-1psg.poss | I-2psg.poss
| |
| ‘you (my loved one)’ | ‘you (my loved one)’ | ‘I (your loved one)’ | |
- with adjectives they are used in selective constructions coding the relation between a single element and the group it belongs to, e.g. in Khalkha:
| (6) | Bi | ter | ömd-nüüd-ijn | ulaan-ijg | n’ | songo-son.
|
| I | dem | trouser-pl-gen | red-acc | 3.poss | choose-pc.pst
|
| ‘I have chosen the red one of these trousers’ |
| (7) | Nadad | ulaan-aa | ög-čix!
|
| I-dloc | red-refl | give-asp.imp |
|
| ‘Please give me the red one (of your dresses)’ |
- with postpositions they can replace nouns and pronouns, building forms that can be seen as relational adverbs, e.g. in Buryat:
| (8) | Doro-n’ | bai-ža | bai!
|
| under-3.poss | be-cv.impf | be-imp
|
| ‘Stay down there!’ (e.g. under a tree in the rain) |
| (9) | Dor-oo | bai!
|
| under-rfl | be.imp
|
| ‘Stay down there! (where you are)’ |
4. Both personal and reflexive possessive markers can be combined with non-finite verbs for subject agreement/indexing; with non-finite subordinated predicates, possessive markers have two main functions (s. more Skribnik 1988):
-
in opposition to the finite personal marking, possessive marking supports the differentiation between the main and dependent (background) predication, in addition to the finite vs. non-finite opposition of verbal forms;
-
they encode subjects’ coreference, i.e., same-subjectness (SS, reflexive possessive suffix) and non-coreference, i.e., different-subjectness (DS, personal possessive markers).
It should be noted that a limited group of non-finite verbal forms do not allow possessive marking, especially the coordinating – imperfective, perfective, and modal – converbs. With this exception, in SS-constructions, the reflexive-possessive suffix on the non-finite predicate is obligatory, e.g. in Khalkha:
| (10) | Tuya | unt-tal-aa | nom | unš-san
|
| Tuya | sleep-cv.term-refl | book | read-pc.pst
|
| ‘Tuya read a book until she fell asleep’ |
In a DS-construction, the personal possessive markers are used, e.g., in Buryat:
| (11) | Tuya-gai | edi-že | sada-tar-n’ | eži-n’ | xül’ee-gee |
|
| Tuya-gen | eat-cv.impf | sated-cv.term-3poss | mother-3poss | wait-pc.pst
|
| ‘Tuya’s mother waited till she (Tuya) finished her food’ |
However, personal-possessive marking is optional/differential, motivated by the information structure; patterns of its use are different in individual languages.
