Mongolian language

Mongolian Монгол (Mongol) (Mongγol)
Spoken in:	Mongolia, People's Republic of China
Region:	All of Mongolia and Inner Mongolia; parts of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces in China
Total speakers:	5.7 million
Language family:	Altaic[1]  Mongolic   Eastern    Oirat-Khalkha     Khalkha-Buriat      Mongolian
Writing system:	Mongolian script, Cyrillic
Official status
Official language in:	Mongolia  People's Republic of China (Inner Mongolia)
Regulated by:	State Language Council (Mongolia)[2]
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	mn
ISO 639-2:	mon
ISO 639-3:	variously: mon – Mongolian (generic) khk – Khalkha Mongolian mvf – Peripheral Mongolian
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

The Mongolian language ( , Mongγol kele, Cyrillic: Монгол хэл, Mongol khel) is the best-known member of the Mongolic language family and the language of most residents of Mongolia, where it is officially written with the Cyrillic alphabet, and of the approximately three million Mongolian speakers in China mostly in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, where it is officially written with the traditional Mongolian script. The majority of speakers in Mongolia speak the Khalkha (or Halh) dialect, while those in China speak one of multiple Inner Mongolian dialects. There is officially a standard pronunciation “based” on the Chakhar dialect of the Plain Blue Banner. A standard grammar and vocabulary is from a so-called “Inner Mongolian dialect” which is contrasted to the Oirat and Barghu-Buryat dialect.^[3] It is thus comprised of dialectal varieties that differ from each other so substantially as to effectively preclude a common standard.

1 Classification 2 Geographic distribution and dialects 3 Phonology 3.1 Vowels 3.2 Consonants 3.3 Syllable structure and phonotactics 3.4 Stress 4 Grammar 4.1 Morphology 4.2 Syntax 4.2.1 Phrase structure 4.2.2 Clauses 4.2.3 Complex sentences 5 Lexicon 6 Writing systems 7 Historical Mongolian 7.1 Changes in phonology 7.1.1 Consonants 7.1.2 Vowels 7.2 Changes in morphology 7.2.1 Nominal system 7.2.2 Verbal system 7.3 Changes in syntax 8 Notes 9 Bibliography 10 See also 11 External links

Mongolian is a Mongolic language. The Altaic theory proposes that the Mongolic family is a member of the larger Altaic family, which would also include the Turkic and Tungusic languages. Related Mongolic languages in any case include the probably extinct Moghol language of Afghanistan, Khamnigan and Dagur in the East of Greater Mongolia and Shira Yugur, Bonan, Santa and Monguor in Qinghai and Gansu. Oirat (consisting of Kalmyk and Oirat varieties spoken in China and Mongolia) and Buryat are sometimes considered to be major dialects and sometimes as Mongolic languages of their own right, and there are scientists who hold that Ordos is an independent language as well.^[4]

Mongolian is the national language of the state of Mongolia where it is spoken by about 2,5 million people and an official language of Inner Mongolia where it is spoken by maybe 2,7 million speakers.^[5] The exact number of Mongolian speakers in China is hard to determine, as the only available data about Chinese citizens is on nationality, not language proficiency. The number of people of Mongolian nationality is roughly 5 millions, but the use of Mongolian is declining especially among younger speakers in urban areas due to the dominance of Chinese.^[6] The great majority of speakers of Mongolian proper in China lives in Inner Mongolia, but there are also some Kharchin and Khorchin speakers in areas of Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang that border to Inner Mongolia.^[7]

The delimitation of the Mongolian language is a problem to which different scholars hold notably different opinions and that – in order to get a conclusive answer – would require comparable criteria within one dialectological framework that would ultimately account for the sociolinguistic as well as for the historical situation of the Mongolian dialect continuum. And while phonological and lexical studies are comparatively well developed,^[8] the basis for a comparative morpho-syntactic study, eg between such highly diverse varieties as Khalkh and Khorchin,^[9] is not yet given^[10].

To begin with, there is no disagreement that the Khalkh dialect of the Mongolian state is Mongolian.^[11] But immediately after fixing this one point, classificational problems arise. For example, the influential classification of Sanžeev (1953) proposed that Buryat and Oirat be independent Mongolic languages, but that such dialects as Chakhar and Ordos belong to a “Mongolian language”.^[12] On the other hand, Luvsanvandan (1959) proposed a “Mongolian language” consisting of a Central dialect (Khalkh, Chakhar, Ordos), an Eastern dialect (Kharchin, Khorchin), a Western dialect (the Oirat spoken in Xinjiang and the Kalmyk language) and a Northern dialect (consisting of two Buryat varieties).^[13] Some western scholars propose that the relatively well-researched Ordos variety be an independent language.^[14] While the whereabouts of a variety like Alasha that is under the cultural influence of Inner Mongolia, but is historically tied to Oirat^[15] and the similar whereabouts of other bordering varieties like Darkhad must remain problematic in any classification,^[16] the question of how to classify Chakhar, Khalkh and Khorchin in relation to each other and in relation to Buryat and Oirat remains at the centre of the problem.^[17] While the split of ʧ into ʧ before *i and ʦ before all other reconstructed vowels in Outer Mongolia and its lack in Inner Mongolia (eg Proto-Mongolic *ʧil, Khalkha [ʧiɮ], Chakhar [ʧil] 'year' vs. Proto-Mongolic *ʧøhelen, Khalkha [ʦooɮəŋ], Chakhar [ʧooləŋ] 'few'),^[18] is often cited as a criterion of importance^[19] the split between the past tense verbal suffixes -sŋ in the Central dialect vs. -ʤɛ: in the Eastern dialect^[20] that is blurred by the school grammar which treats several dialectal varieties as one coherent grammatical system^[21] is more often only seen as a stochastic difference.^[22]

The following description that is based on Ulaanbaatar Khalkha Mongolian differs considerably from the phoneme systems of varieties such as Chakhar, Ordos, Khorchin or Kharchin.^[23]

	Front		Central		Back
	Short	Long	Short	Long	Short	Long
Close	i	iː			u	uː
Near-Close					ʊ	ʊː
Close-Mid	e	eː			o	oː
Open-mid					ɔ	ɔː
Open			a	aː

Short /o/ is phonetically central [ɵ].

Mongolian also has four diphthongs: /ui, ʊi, ɔi, ai/.^[24]

Vowel length. Pronunciation of long and short vowels depends on the syllable's position in the word. In word-initial syllables there is a phonemic contrast in length. Here, a long vowel has about 208% the length of a short vowel. In word-internal and word-final syllables, formerly long vowels have been reduced to 127% the length of short word-initial vowels, thus becoming short phonemes, but still being separate from word-initial short vowels as "full vowels". Short non-initial vowels have been reduced to 71% the length of short word-initial vowels and become centralized, in the course losing their status as phonemes and becoming non-phonemic.^[25]

Backness harmony. Mongolian divides vowels into two groups in a system of vowel harmony:

+ATR ("front")	-ATR ("back")	Neutral
e, u, o	a, ʊ, ɔ	i

For historical reasons, these have traditionally been labeled as "front" vowels and "back" vowels. However, an analysis of these groups as what can be termed advanced tongue root or +ATR and non-advanced tongue root or -ATR instead seems more appropriate. There is also one neutral vowel, /i/, which does not belong to either group.

All the vowels in a non-compound word, including all its suffixes, must belong to the same group. If the first vowel is -ATR, then every vowel of the word must be either /i/ or a -ATR vowel. Likewise, if the first vowel is a +ATR vowel, then every vowel of the word must be either /i/ or a +ATR vowel. In the case of suffixes, which must change their vowels to conform to different words, two patterns predominate. Some suffixes can occur with /a, ɔ, e, o/, following the last phonemic vowel in the word stem, in which case underlying /ʊ, u/ are realized as [a, e] respectively. For example:

orx ‘household’	+	-Ar (instrumental)	→	orxor ‘by a household’
xarʊɮ ‘sentry’	+	-Ar (instrumental)	→	xarʊɮar ‘by a sentry’

Other suffixes can occur in either /ʊ, u/, in which case all -ATR vowels lead to /ʊ/ and all +ATR vowels lead to /u/. For example:

aw ‘to take’

+

-Uɮ (causative)

→

awʊɮ

If the only vowel in the word stem is /i/, the suffixes will use the +ATR suffix forms.^[26]

Rounding harmony. Mongolian also has rounding harmony pertaining to open vowels only. If a stem contains /o/ (or /ɔ/), a suffix that is specified for an open vowel will have [o] (or [ɔ], respectively) as well. However, this process is blocked by the presence of /u/ (or /ʊ/) and /ei/. Eg ɔr-ɮɔ 'came in', but ɔr-ʊɮ-ɮa 'inserted'.^[27]

		Labial		Dental		Palatal	Velar		Uvular
		Plain	Palatalized	Plain	Palatalized		Palatalized	Plain
Nasal		m	mʲ	n	nʲ			ŋ
Plosive	Voiceless aspirated	(pʰ)	(pʲʰ)	tʰ	tʲʰ		(kʲʰ)	(kʰ)
	Voiceless	p	pʲ	t	tʲ
	Voiced						ɡʲ	ɡ	ɢ
Affricate	Voiceless aspirated			tsʰ		tʃʰ
	Voiceless	(f)		ts		tʃ
Fricative				s		ʃ	xʲ	x
Lateral fricative				ɮ	ɮʲ
Trill				r	rʲ
Approximant		w̜	w̜ʲ			j

Mongolian lacks a true phoneme /l/; instead, it has a voiced alveolar lateral fricative, /ɮ/. In word-final position, /n/ (if not followed by a vowel in historical forms) is realized as [ŋ]. The consonants in parentheses occur only in loanwords.^[28] In the consonant system, the occurrence of palatalized consonant phonemes seems to be restricted to words that contain pharyngeal vowels.^[29]

The maximal syllable is CVVCCC where the last C is a word-final suffix. A single short vowel rarely appears in syllable-final position, thus the syllables CV and V are avoided in any position that is not the first syllable of a word that contains at least two syllables. If a word was monosyllabic historically, *CV has become CVV. [ŋ] is restricted to codas (else >[n]), and /p/ and /pʲ/ don’t occur in codas for historical reasons. For two-consonant clusters, the following restrictions obtain:

• a palatalized consonant can only be preceded by another palatalized consonant or sometimes /ɢ/ and /ʃ/
• /ŋ/ may only precede /ʃ, x, g, gʲ/ and /ɢ/
• /j/ doesn’t seem to appear in second position
• /p/ and /pʲ/ don’t occur as first consonant and only as second consonant if preceded by /m/ or /ɮ/ or their palatalized counterparts.

Clusters that don't confirm to these restrictions will be broken up by a epenthetic non-phonemic vowel in a syllabification that takes place from right to left. For example, hojor 'two', ažil 'work', and saarmag 'neutral' are, phonemically, /xɔjr/, /atʃɮ/, and /saːrmɡ/ respectively. In such cases, an epenthetic vowel is inserted so as to prevent disallowed consonant clusters. Thus, in the examples given above, the words are phonetically [xɔjɔ̆r], [atʃĭɮ], and [saːrmăɡ]. The phonetic form of the epenthetic vowel follows from vowel harmony triggered by the vowel in the preceding syllable. Usually it is a centralized version of the same sound, with the following exceptions: preceding /u/ produces [e], /i/ will be ignored if there is a non-neutral vowel earlier in the word, and a postalveolar or palatalized consonant will be followed by an epenthetic [i], as in [atʃĭɮ].^[30]

Stress in Mongolian does not distinguish between different meanings and is thus supposed to depend entirely on syllable structure. Except for this, little agreement exists between different scientists.^[31] In one line of reasoning^[32], stress falls on the rightmost heavy syllable unless this syllable is word-final:

HˈHLL	bai.ˈɡʊɮ. ɮəɢ.dəx	"to be organized"
LHˈHL	xon.di.ˈru.ɮəŋ	"to separate (modal)"
LHHˈHL	ʊ.lan.baːt.ˈrin.xəŋ	"the residents of Ulaanbaatar"
HˈHH	ʊːr.ˈtai.ɢar	"angrily"
ˈHLH	ˈʊit.ɡər.tai	"sad"

Heaviness is here defined as being at least of the length of a full vowel, thus short word-initial syllables are excluded. Therefore, if a word is two-syllabic and the only heavy syllable is word-final, it gets stressed anyway. However, in case that there is only one phonemic short word-initial syllable present, even this syllable can get the stress:

LˈH	ɡa.ˈlʊ	"goose"
ˈLLL	ˈʊnʃ.səŋ	"having read"

^[33]

There are two widespread diverging opinions: 1. Stress falls on the first syllable. This position is held by most native linguists independent of dialect. 2. The leftmost heavy syllable gets the stress. This position was stated in several works by western scholars between 1941 and 1975.^[34]

The following description is based primarily on Standard Khalkha Mongolian, but much of it is also valid for Southern Central Mongolian, especially Chakhar.^[35]

Modern Mongolian is an agglutinative, exclusively suffixing language; the suffixes are most often composed of a single morpheme. It has a rich number of morphemes to build up more complex words from simple roots. For example, the word <bajguullagynh> consists of the root <baj-> ‘to be’, an epenthetic <-g->, the causative <-uul-> (then ‘to found’), the derivative suffix <-laga> that forms nouns created by the action (‘organisation’) and the complex suffix <–ynh> denoting something that belongs to the modified word (<-yn> would be genitive).^[36]

Nominal compounds are quite frequent. Some derivational verbal suffixes are rather productive, e.g. <jar’-> 'to speak', <jarilts-> 'to speak with each other'. Formally, verbal suffixes that create independent words can roughly be divided into three classes: final verbs, which can only be used sentence-finally, i.e. <-na> (mainly future or generic statements) or –ø (second person imperative);^[37] participles (often called “verbal nouns”), which can be used clause-finally or attributively, i.e. <-san> (perfect-past)^[38] or <-maar> (‘want to’); and converbs, which can link clauses or function adverbially, i.e. <-ž> (qualifies for any adverbial function or neutrally connects two sentences) or <-tal> (the action of the main clause takes place until the action expressed by the suffixed verb begins).^[39]

Roughly speaking, Mongolian has eight cases: nominative (unmarked), genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, instrumental, comitative and directional.^[40] In addition, a number of postpositions exist that usually govern genitive, ablative or comitative case or an oblique form, that is, the stem plus sometimes -Vn either for lexical historical reasons or analogy (thus maybe becoming an attributive case suffix).^[41] Nouns can take reflexive-possessive clitics indicating that the marked noun is possessed by the subject of the sentence: <Bi najz(-)aa avarsan> I friend-reflexive-possessive save-perfect ‘I saved my friend’.^[42] There are also somewhat noun-like adjectives that, however, seem to be only able to immediately take case suffixes in the case of ellipsis.^[43] Plurality may be unmarked, but there are overt markers some of which are restricted to humans. A noun that is modified by a numeral usually doesn't take any plural affix.^[44]

Personal pronouns exist for the first and second person, while the old demonstrative pronouns have come to form third person (proximal and distal) pronouns. Other word (sub-)classes include interrogative pronouns, conjunctions (which take participles), spatials and quite a few particles.^[45]

Negation is mostly expressed by <-güj> after participles and by the negation particle <biš> after nouns and adjectives; negation particles preceding the verb (for example in converbal constructions) exist, but tend to be replaced by analytical constructions.^[46]

[edit] Phrase structure

The nominal phrase has the order: demonstrative pronoun/numeral, adjective, noun.^[47] Attributive sentences precedes the whole NP. Titles or occupations of people, low numerals indicating groups and focus clitics are put behind the head noun.^[48] Possessive pronouns (in different forms) may either precede or follow the NP^[49]. E.g. <bidnij uulzsan ter sajhan zaluugaas č> we-genitive meet-perfective that beautiful young_man-ablative focus ‘even from that beautiful young man that we have met’, <Dorž bagš maan’> Dorj teacher our ‘our teacher Dorj’.

The verbal phrase consists of the predicate’s complements and the adverbials modifying it in front of it and, mainly if the predicate is sentence-final, modal particles^[50] behind it. E.g. <Ter helehgüjgeer ünijg bičsen šüü> S/he without_saying it-accusative write-perfective particle ‘She wrote it without saying [i.e. that she would do so] (so I can assure you).’ In this clause the adverbial should precede the complement as it is itself derived from a verb and could take ‘it’ as its complement. If the adverbial was an adjective à la <hurdan> 'fast', it could immediately precede the predicate. There are also instances in which the adverb must immediately precede the predicate.^[51]

The predicate itself may consist of a noun or an adjective with or without a copula.^[52] Most often, of course, a verb is used. Auxiliaries that express direction and aktionsart among other meanings can with the assistance of a linking converb occupy the position immediately behind the verb, eg <uuž orhison> drink-CV leave-perfect 'drank up'. The next position is filled by converb suffixes in connection with the auxiliary <baj-> ‘to be’, eg <Ter güjž bajna> s/he run-converb be-nonpast ‘She is running’. Meanings expressed in this position are aspectual in nature, eg progressive and resultative. In the next position, participles followed by <baj-> may follow, eg <Ter irsen bajna> s/he come-perfect be-nonpast ‘He has come’. Here, an explicit perfect and habituality can be marked, which is aspectual meaning as well. This position can be occupied more than once in one predication, and it can still be followed by a converbal Progressive. The last position is occupied by suffixes that express tense, modality and aspect.^[53]

[edit] Clauses

Unmarked phrase order is subject, object, predicate (also referred to as SOV).^[54] While the predicate generally has to remain in clause-final position, the other phrases are free to change order or to wholly disappear.^[55] The topic tends to be placed clause-initially, new information rather at the end of the clause.^[56] Topic can be overtly marked with <bol> that can also mark contrastive focus^[57], overt additive focus ('even, also') can be marked with the clitic <č>^[58], overt restrictive focus with the clitic <l> ('only').^[59]

Mongolian has passive and causative voice. In a passive sentence the entirely oblique agent takes either dative or instrumental case, the first of which is more common. The verb takes a suffix <-gd->. In the causative, the person caused to do something would take instrumental, or accusative, if the simple verb would have been intransitive, and the verb would take <-uul->. Causative morphology is also used in some passive contexts: <Bi tüünd čaduulsan> I s/he-dative fool-caustive-perfective ‘I was fooled by her/him’. Animacy is an important component, thus English 'The bread was eaten by me' would not be acceptable in Mongolian. <-ld-> (reciprocal), <-tsgaa-> (plurative) and <-lts-> (cooperative) are voice constructions as well.^[60]

[edit] Complex sentences

One way to conjoin clauses is to have the first clause end in a converb. An example: <Bid üünijg olbol čamd ögnö> we it-accusative find-conditional_converbal_suffix you-dative give-future ‘If we find it we’ll give it to you’. Some verbal nouns in the instrumental or most often dative function very similar to converbs:^[61] above sentence with <olohod> find-imperfective-dative ‘When I find it I’ll give it to you’. Quite often, postpositions govern complete clauses. In contrast, conjunctions take verbal nouns without case:^[62] <jadarsan učraas untlaa> become_tired-perfective because sleep-witnessed_perfective 'I slept because I was tired'. Finally, there are usually clause-initial particles with relating meaning: <Bi olson, harin čamd ögöhgüj> I find-perfective but you-dative give-imperfective-negation ‘I’ve found it, but I won’t give it to you’.

Mongolian has a complementizer auxiliary verb <ge-> very similar to Japanese to iu. <ge-> literally means ‘to say’ and in converbal form <gež> precedes a verbum sentiendi et dicendi. As a verbal noun like <gedeg> (with <n’> or case) it can form a subset of complement clauses. As <gene> it may function as an evidentialis marker.^[63]

Mongolian clauses tend to be arranged in a paratactic order, allowing for clauses that are syntactically subordinate, but resemble coordinated structures in European languages:^[64] <Ter ireed namajg ünssen> that come-converb me_accusative kiss-perfect ‘S/he came and kissed me.’

In the subordinate clause the subject, if different from the subject of main clause, sometimes has to take accusative or genitive case.^[65] Subjects in either the ablative case marginally occur as well.^[66] Subjects of attribute clauses in which the head has a function (as is the case for all English relative clauses) demand that if the subject is not the head it usually takes the genitive case,^[67] e.g. <tüünij idsen hool> that_one-genitive eat-perfective meal ‘the meal that s/he had eaten’.

The Mongolian vocabulary includes historic loanwords especially from Old Turkic, Sanskrit (often through Uigur), Persian, Arabic, Tibetan,^[68] Tungusic and Chinese^[69] and keeps adopting more recent ones from Russian, English^[70] and Chinese (mainly in Inner Mongolia)^[71]. Commissions in the Mongolian state have been busy translating new terminology into Mongolian, so that Mongolian words such as 'president' <jerönhijlögč> ("generalizer") and 'beer' <šar ajrag> ("yellow kumys") exist. There are quite a few loan translations, e.g. <galt tereg> ('fire-having cart') 'train' from Chinese huǒchē (火车, fire cart) 'train'.^[72].

Main article: Mongolian writing systems

Mongolian has been written in a variety of alphabets over the centuries.

The traditional Mongolian script was adapted from Uyghur script probably at the very beginning of the 13th century and from that time underwent some minor disambiguations and supplementations. Between 1930 and 1932, a short-lived attempt was made to introduce the Latin script in the Mongolian state, and after a preparatory phase, the Cyrillic script was declared as mandatory by government decree. From 1991 to 1994, a short-lived attempt to reintroduce the traditional alphabet was made which failed due to resistance from the general public.^[73] In informal contexts of electronic text production, the use of Latin is common as well.^[74]

In the People's Republic of China, Mongolian is a co-official language with Mandarin Chinese in some regions, notably the entire Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The traditional alphabet has always been used there, although Cyrillic was considered briefly before the Sino-Soviet split.^[75] There are two types of written Mongolian used in China: the classical script, which is official among Mongols nationwide, and the Clear script, used predominantly among Oirats in Xinjiang.^[76]

The modified Cyrillic alphabet used for Mongolian is as follows:

Cyrillic	Name	IPA	Transliteration		Cyrillic	Name	IPA	Transliteration
Аа	а	a	a		Пп	пэ	(pʰ ), (pʰʲ )	(p )
Бб	бэ	p,pʲ, b	b		Рр	эр	r,rʲ	r
Вв	вэ	w,wʲ	v		Сс	эс	s	s
Гг	гэ	ɡ,ɡʲ,ɢ´, k	g		Тт	тэ	tʰ,tʰʲ	t
Дд	дэ	t,tʲ	d		Уу	у	ʊ	u
Ее	е	jε~jɜ, e	je		Үү	ү	u	ü
Ёё	ё	jɔ	jo		Фф	фэ~фа~эф	(f )	(f )
Жж	жэ	tʃ	ž		Хх	хэ~ха	x,xʲ	h
Зз	зэ	ts	z		Цц	цэ	tsʰ	ts
Ии	и	i	i		Чч	чэ	tʃʰ	č
Йй	хагас и	i	j		Шш	ша~эш	ʃ	š
Кк	ка	(k ), (kʲ )	(k )		Щщ	ща~эшчэ	(stʃ )	( šč )
Лл	эл	ɮ,ɮʲ	l		Ъ ъ	хатуугийн тэмдэг	"
Мм	эм	m,mʲ	m		Ыы	эр үгийн ы	i	y
Нн	эн	n,nʲ	n		Ьь	зөөлний тэмдэг	ʲ	'
Оо	о	ɔ	o		Ээ	э	e	e
Өө	ө	o	ö		Юю	ю	jʊ, ju	ju
					Яя	я	ja, j	ja

Үү and Өө are sometimes written as Vv or Її and Єє, mainly when using Russian software or keyboards that don't support them.

The earliest surviving Mongolian text is the Stele of Yisüngge, a report on sports in Mongolian script on stone, that is most often dated at the verge of 1224 and 1225.^[77] Other early sources are written in Mongolian, Phagspa (decrets), Chinese (the Secret History), Arabic (dictionaries) and a few western scripts.^[78] These comprise the Middle Mongolian language that was spoken from the 13th to the early 15th^[79] or late 16th^[80] century. The documents in Mongolian script show some distinct linguistic characteristics and are therefore often distinguished by terming their language Preclassical Mongolian.^[79] The next distinct period is Classical Mongolian that is dated from the 17th to the 19th century. It is a written language with a high degree of standardization in orthography and syntax that sets it quite apart from the subsequent Modern Mongolian. The most notable documents in this language are the Mongolian Kanjur and Tanjur^[81] as well as a bunch of chronicles. In 1686, the Soyombo script (Buddhist texts) was created, giving distinctive evidence on early classical Mongolian phonological peculiarities.^[82]

[edit] Consonants

Middle Mongolian documents show only two velar plosives <g> and <k> (and one allophone for each), but in some instances the <g> disappeared and in others not. There is no hint as to how this might be related to contextual factors, and while there is a hypothesis that this is related to distinctive vowel length or stress,^[83] it is a matter of dispute whether there is any factual evidence for this. Now there is a word-initial <h> that disappeared during the Middle Mongolian stage. This might be the same phoneme as one of the instances of <g> (possibly [x]). Thus, it is likely that x → h → Ø.^[84] Eg Phagspa <haran>, Preclassical Mongolian <aran>, reconstructed in Proto-Mongolic as *haran ‘person’, became Modern Mongolian <aran>.^[85] Phagspa čaqa’an, Preclassical čaγaγan,^[86] reconstructed for Late Pre-Proto-Mongolic as *ʧʰagahan ‘white’, became Modern Mongolian /ʦʰagan/. As also apparent from this example, affricates were fronted in Northern Modern Mongolian dialects such as Khalkha. /kʰ/ was spirantized to /x/ in Ulaanbaatar Khalkha and the Mongolian dialects South of it, eg Preclassical Mongolian <kündü>, reconstructed as *kʰynty ‘heavy’, became Modern Mongolian /xunt/^[87] (but in Erdenet many speakers will say [kʰunt]). Originally word-final /n/ turned into /ŋ/; if *n was originally followed by a vowel that later dropped, it remained unchanged, eg *kʰen became /xiŋ/, but *kʰoina became /xɔin/. After i-breaking, *[ʃ] became phonemic. Consonants in words containing back vowels that were followed by *i in Proto-Mongolian became palatalized in Modern Mongolian. In some words, word-final *n was dropped with most case forms, but still appears with the ablative, dative and genitive.^[88]

[edit] Vowels

Proto-Mongolic had *i, *e, *y, *ø, *u, *o, *a. First, *o and *u were pharyngealized to /ɔ/ and /ʊ/, then *y and *ø were velarized to /u/ and /o/. Thus, the vowel harmony shifted from a velar to a pharyngeal paradigm. *i in the first syllable of back-vocalic words was assimilated to the following vowel; in word-initial position it became /ja/. *e followed by *y was rounded to *ø. VhV and VjV sequences where the second vowel was any vowel but *i were monophthongized. Short vowels in any syllable but the first were deleted from the phonetic representation of the word; long vowels in these positions became short vowels.^[89]

Eg *imahan (*i becomes /ja/, *h disappears) → *jamaːn (instable n drops; vowel reduction) → jama(n) ‘goat’

and *emys- (regressive rounding assimilation) → *ømys- (vowel velarization) → *omus- (vowel reduction) → oms- ‘to wear’

[edit] Nominal system

While most case suffixes did change somewhat in form, ie were shortened, most of the modern case system remained intact. Important changes occurred with the comitative and the dative. The Middle Mongolian comitative <-luγ-a> could not be used attributively, but it was replaced by suffix <-taj> that originally derived adjectives denoting possession of the stem from nouns, eg <mori-tai> ‘having a horse’ became <mor’toj> ‘having a horse/with a horse’. As this adjective functioned parallel to <ügej> ‘not having’, it has been suggested^[90] that a “privative case” (‘without’) has been introduced into Mongolian. There have been three different case suffixes in the dative-locative-directive domain that are grouped in different ways: <-a> as locative and <-dur>, <-da> as dative^[91] or <-da> and <-a> as dative and <-dur> as locative,^[92] in both cases with some functional overlapping. As <-dur> seems to be grammaticalized from <dotur-a> ‘within’, thus indicating a span of time,^[93] the second account seems to be more likely. Of these, <-da> got lost, <-dur> was first reduced to <-du> and then to /d/^[94] and <-a> only survived in a few frozen environments^[95]. Finally, the directive of modern Mongolian <-ruu> has been innovated from <uruγu> 'downwards'^[96]. Gender agreement was abandoned.^[97].

[edit] Verbal system

Middle Mongolian had a slightly greater set of final verb suffix forms and a smaller number of participles which were less likely to be used as finite predicates. Their functional values seem to have shifted as well, but as the aspectual, temporal, modal and evidential nuances of Middle Mongolian verb forms are not well understood, it is impossible to state much about their semantic development. The linking converb <-n> became confined to stable verb combinations, while the number of converbs somewhat increased. The gender and number distinction exhibited by some final verbs got lost.^[98]

Neutral word order in clauses with pronominal subject changed from Object-Predicate-Subject to Subject-Object-Predicate, eg

Kökseü sabraq ügü.le-run 'ayyi. yeke uge ugu.le-d ta ...' kee-jüü.y. K. s. speal-converb alas big word speak-Past you say-nonfuture 'Kökseü sabraq spoke saying "Alas. You speak a great boast. ..."'^[99]

The negation of verbs shifted from negation particles preceding final verbs to a negation particle following participles; thus, as final verbs could no longer be negated, their paradigm of negation was filled by particles.^[100] Eg Written Mongolian <ese irebe> 'did not come' vs. modern spoken Mongolian <ireegüj> (Modern Written Mongolian <irege ügei>) 'did not come (yet)' or <irsengüj> 'did not come (then)'.

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