Oriental Studies (Apr 2022)
Frequency Use of Plurality Markers in Kalmyk Nouns (With Comparative Insights into Mongolian and Buryat)
Abstract
Introduction. The article deals with the frequency use of nominal plurality markers in Kalmyk with comparative insights into Khalkha Mongolian and Buryat. Goals. The study aims at clarifying how different the parameter is in the Mongolic languages (given that in all the analyzed idioms the use of the plural is considered optional) for further understanding of how alterable the latter are in contacts with other languages. Materials and methods. The research includes two stages: 1) analysis of a ‘microcorpus’ (10.115 word tokens), 2) analysis of online Kalmyk and Buryat corpora (800.000 and 2.200.000 word tokens, respectively). The work employs methods of calculation and comparative research. Results. The ‘microcorpus’ study shows that plurality markers in Kalmyk discourse are used somewhat less frequently than in Buryat (each twenty first and eighteenth lexemes, respectively). Whereas the ‘big’ corpora study shows that plurality markers in Kalmyk are used twice as frequently as in Buryat. Unfortunately, currently it is technically impossible to extract relevant data from the ‘big’ Mongolian corpus. Nevertheless, the available data prove that plurality markers both in Kalmyk and Buryat are used more frequently than in modern Mongolian. Conclusion. The paper suggests that around the 17th century or later there must have been a decrease in the use of plurality markers by Mongolian speakers (according to J. Street, in Middle Mongolian — i.e. in the 13th-16th centuries AD — plurality markers were four times as frequent). Probably, this phenomenon had not affected Kalmyk and Buryat that would be detached from genetically close surrounding to experience influence of Russian, which resulted in that these languages witnessed a ‘conservation’ of their original feature of comparatively frequent use of nominal plurality markers.
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