A cognitive approach to event structures in Middle Mongolian based on the corpus "The secret history of the Mongols"

This dissertation entitled “A Cognitive Approach to Event Structures in Middle Mongolian Based on the corpus ‘The Secret History of the Mongols’” considers itself an empirical study. It deals with the question of how the underlying language knowledge, which manifests in the language usage of the one or more (here: anonymous) authors, can be derived from a historically transmitted text corpus such as the “Secret History Mongols”. It intends to analyze methodically the totality of verbal relevant phenomena in Middle Mongolian as they appear in the text corpus with 29,396 lexemes from a cognitive-typological point of view. The aim was also to provide a basic typology of verb formation by systematically examining the data for patterns of usage (usage-based) in terms of their frequency as well as the associated markedness because this provides evidence for the degree of language usage. It can be assumed that no linguistic element is independent in its meaning from its textual environment which is especially evident in the phrase units, thus each linguistic element has a meaning/function that is relevant to a larger embedding construction. The structure of a text can be compared to the structure of an “onion” in which all layers are related with each other as part of a whole, with each layer expressing a linguistic sign. In this process, patterns are revealed in all layers, which in turn are analyzed for their semanticity

Expressing intent, imminence and ire by attributing speech/thought in Mongolian

Quoted clauses in which an intention is declared are cross-linguistically known to develop into clauses that directly ascribe an intention to their subjects, and further into clauses that express the imminence of an event. In Khalkha Mongolian, several quotative constructions based on the quotative verb ge- have come to ascribe intention and then developed further semantic extensions: (i) The pattern -x ge-, featuring a fossilized Middle Mongol future-referring participial suffix, is used in a group of constructions that cover the semantic space between future time reference, intention (initially of the current speaker), and imminence. (ii) Quotational clauses ending in a particular tense-aspect-evidentiality suffix (including -n) and subordinated by a linking converb ge-ž/ge-ed are often systematically ambiguous between quotation and their purposive, causal and concessive extensions. Noun phrases with similar properties additionally allow for (dedicational-)benefactive and (allocational-)functive uses. (iii) The pattern -n ge-, which in other Central Mongolic varieties resembles -x ge-, conveys the speaker’s disbelief and anger about an actor’s willful deeds when used in echo questions marked by -n=AA. Based on conversational corpus data, this paper tries to provide a comprehensive picture of Khalkha Mongolian constructions in which the speaker’s awareness of the subject’s speech or thoughts is reinterpreted as attributing intentions and their derived notions

Proceedings of the 1st Conference on Central Asian Languages and Linguistics (ConCALL)

The Conference on Central Asian Languages and Linguistics (ConCALL) was founded in 2014 at Indiana University by Dr. Öner Özçelik, the residing director of the Center for Languages of the Central Asian Region (CeLCAR). As the nation’s sole U.S. Department of Education funded Language Resource Center focusing on the languages of the Central Asian Region, CeLCAR’s main mission is to strengthen and improve the nation’s capacity for teaching and learning Central Asian languages through teacher training, research, materials development projects, and dissemination. As part of this mission, CeLCAR has an ultimate goal to unify and fortify the Central Asian language learning community by facilitating networking between linguists and language educators, encouraging research projects that will inform language instruction, and provide opportunities for professionals in the field to both showcase their work and receive feedback from their peers. Thus ConCALL was established to be the first international academic conference to bring together linguists and language educators in the languages of the Central Asian region, including both the Altaic and Eastern Indo-European languages spoken in the region, to focus on research into how these specific languages are represented formally, as well as acquired by second/foreign language learners, and also to present research driven teaching methods. Languages served by ConCALL include, but are not limited to: Azerbaijani, Dari, Karakalpak, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Lokaabharan, Mari, Mongolian, Pamiri, Pashto, Persian, Russian, Shughnani, Tajiki, Tibetan, Tofalar, Tungusic, Turkish, Tuvan, Uyghur, Uzbek, Wakhi and more!The Conference on Central Asian Languages and Linguistics held at Indiana University on 16-17 May 1014 was made possible through the generosity of our sponsors: Center for Languages of the Central Asian Region (CeLCAR), Ostrom Grant Programs, IU's College of Arts and Humanities Center (CAHI), Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center (IAUNRC), IU's School of Global and International Studies (SGIS), IU's College of Arts and Sciences, Sinor Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies (SRIFIAS), IU's Department of Central Eurasian Studies (CEUS), and IU's Department of Linguistics

Book reviews

Book reviews of the following works: René Bannerjea: Eskimos in Europe: How they got there and what happened to them afterwards. Bíró Family Nyomdaipari és Kereskedelmi Vállalat, London & Budapest, 2004, 470 pp. ; Jenő Kiss - Ferenc Pusztai (Hrsg.): Magyar nyelvtörténet [Ungarische Sprachgeschichte]}. Osiris Kiadó, Budapest, 2003, 950 pp. ; Mária Ladányi - Csilla Dér - Helga Hattyár (eds): "...még onnét is eljutni túlra''. Nyelvészeti és irodalmi tanulmányok Horváth Katalin tiszteletére ["...getting even beyond that..."]. Linguistic and literary studies in honor of Katalin Horváth]. Tinta Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 2004, 499 pp. ; Yuri Alekseevich Tambovtsev: Tipologija funktsionirovanija fonem v zvukovoj tsepochke indoevropejskih, paleoaziatskih, uralo-altaiskih i drugih jazykov mira: kompaktnost' podgrupp, grupp, semej i drugih jazykovyh taksonov [A typology of the functioning of phonemes in sound sequences in Indo-European, Paleo-Asiatic, Ural-Altaic and other languages of the world: The compactness of subgroups, groups, families and other language taxons]}. Sibirskij Nezavysimyj Institut, Novosibirsk, 2003, 143 pp

A typology of questions in Northeast Asia and beyond: An ecological perspective

This study investigates the distribution of linguistic and specifically structural diversity in Northeast Asia (NEA), defined as the region north of the Yellow River and east of the Yenisei. In particular, it analyzes what is called the grammar of questions (GQ), i.e., those aspects of any given language that are specialized for asking questions or regularly combine with these. The bulk of the study is a bottom-up description and comparison of GQs in the languages of NEA. The addition of the phrase and beyond to the title of this study serves two purposes. First, languages such as Turkish and Chuvash are included, despite the fact that they are spoken outside of NEA, since they have ties to (or even originated in) the region. Second, despite its focus on one area, the typology is intended to be applicable to other languages as well. Therefore, it makes extensive use of data from languages outside of NEA. The restriction to one category is necessary for reasons of space and clarity, and the process of zooming in on one region allows a higher resolution and historical accuracy than is usually the case in linguistic typology. The discussion mentions over 450 languages and dialects from NEA and beyond and gives about 900 glossed examples. The aim is to achieve both a cross-linguistically plausible typology and a maximal resolution of the linguistic diversity of Northeast Asia