The purpose of this paper is to elucidate what differences lie between existential sentences and possessive sentences in the Mongolian language. The language has three linguistic devices to make the existential constructions and the possessive ones: the final particle bij(бий), the auxiliary verb baj-(бай-), and the possessive suffix –taj3(–taj/-tej/-toj (-тай/-тэй/-той)). The particle typically expresses existence, while the suffix indicates possession. The auxiliary verb can carry both of them. Besides that, sometimes bij stands for possessive meanings, and sometimes –taj3 represents existential meanings. The tangled web of their functions, as the paper explains, will be untangled by using several semantic factors including clines as well as morpho-syntactic forms.
存在と所有の間--モンゴル語の存在文と所有文の意味論
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