Oriental Studies (Dec 2020)
The Verb болох / болохо / болха / болх ‘Become, Make; Be’ in Mongolic Languages: Some Ways of Grammaticalization Revisited
Abstract
Introduction. The article discusses some ways of grammaticalization of the verb bolokh / bolokho / bolha / bolh ‘become, make; be’ in Mongolic languages (Mongolian, Buryat, Oirat and Kalmyk). This verb acts as an auxiliary component in composite predicates, and also functions in the system of service parts of speech to form postpositions and conjunctions. The phenomenon of grammaticalization reflects the dynamics of linguistic processes occurring at the junction of the significant and official functioning of words. The results of studying various lexical units as sources of grammatical indicators significantly expand the understanding of the functioning of grammatical systems in a language. Goals. The research aims at describing the ways of grammaticalization of verbs in Mongolic languages through the example of the verb bolokh / bolokho / bolha / bolh ‘become, make; be’. Materials. The paper analyzes literary, folklore, journalistic texts extracted from the corpora of the examined national languages (Mongolian, Buryat and Kalmyk), as well as data from respective dictionaries. Results. The study shows that the verb bolokh / bolokho / bolha / bolh ‘become, make; be’ is undergoing various changes. In the formation of compound nominal and verbal predicates, it is used as an auxiliary verb. As a result of grammaticalization, there are indicators of the categories of time and modality, classes of words that denote various semantic concepts. The verb can express various modal meanings (assumption, obligation, intention, opportunity, prohibition, etc.). As a result of grammaticalization, modal words derived from the given verb are quite often in Mongolic languages. The adverbial and participial forms of this verb are actively used as official words. The analysis reveals that the meanings of most postpositions and conjunctions in Mongolic languages coincide. But there are also those characteristic only of certain languages. Some words lose their ancient primordial meanings, while others acquire additional ones that rest on their main seme.
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