Stachowski, Kamil

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STUDIA TURCOLOGICA CRACOVIENSIA · 10 (2005) Kamil Stachowski (Kraków) On compound cases in Yakut and Dolgan The phenomenon of compounding case suffixes1 occurs very often in the Mo. languages, only occasionally in the Ma.Tu. languages, and very rarely in the Tkc. languages. Unfortunately, the grammarians of all those languages most often either just skim or even entirely skip the subject. Nevertheless, some examples of two different types (see [1] and [2]) can be found in the descriptions of Yak. and its dialects.2 We shall first present the examples ([1.1] and [2.1]), then try to present their brief structural analysis ([1.2] and [2.2]), and finally try to establish their origin ([1.3] and [2.3]). Hyphen is used throughout the paper to seperate root from suffix; dot – to seperate suffixes.                                                    1 We deliberatley do not use here the term of double declension. It has been popular-ized by the Mo. linguistics but tends to be used, somewhat carelessly, with reference to all similar compounds, also those found beyond Mo. The Yak. & Dolg. compounds, however, are certainly different typologically from the Mo. ones. We suppose that using the same term would be rather misleading. 2 The following example will be omitted from the discussion: Dolg. kynatyn annytan tuok-ka.ny ire orōbut [tuok-DAT.-ACC. ire (indefiniteness particle)] ‘it took something out from under its wing’ (Demьjanenko 1925: 85). The two reasons for doing so are: 1. It is the only example for a Dat.-based compound case in Yak. or Dolg.; 2. It is utterly unclear to us. We can think of no reason for compounding the two suffixes, especially that no difference in meaning can be observed compared to pure Acc.  430 [1] The Com.-based compounds   [1.1] Examples.3  [a] Com.+Acc. Dolg. Tabany hülbekke tirī-līn.i kēspitter. [tirī-COM.-ACC.] (Stachow-ski 1993: 115) ‘They left the reindeer and [its] skin [= without having skinned it].’ Dolg. Toŋus tyl-lypn.y, ńūčča tyl-lypn.y, barytyn ister. [tyl-COM.-ACC.] (Stachowski 1993: 237) ‘He can understand the Evenki language and the Russian language, everything.’ Yess.Y. Uoppuskatyn ikki yj bieriexxe putevka-lypn.y. [putevka-COM.-ACC.] ‘He will be given a two months’ holiday and [a] travel voucher.’  [b] Com.+Dat. Anab.Y. Tys-typn.ygar – tirī-līn.iger xatarbyppar 80 solk. [= solkuobaj] āγystym. [tys-COM.-DAT.3SG.; tirī-COM.-DAT.3SG.] ‘I charged 80 roubles for drying both, its leg skin and its skin.’4 Olen.Y. Èkzema bāha kyraj-dypm.mar tüspüte. [kyraj-COM.-DAT.] ‘Eczema wounds had turned up even on my face.’ Žigan.Y. Arygylaryn syta taŋas-typn.narygar iŋer. [taŋas-COM.-DAT. 3PL.] ‘The smell of vodka penetrates even into their clothes.’  [c] Com.+Abl. Yess.Y. Toŋustar-dypn.tan kelen ōnńūllar ete. [toŋustar-COM.-ABL.] ‘They played having come back from the Evenks.’5  [d] Com.+Instr. Yess.Y. Bahynan xarax-typn.ynan yalg‰ar. [xarax-COM.-INSTR.] ‘His head, and even his eyes hurt.’                                                   3 Examples are to be found in: Voronkin 1984, and Stachowski 1993 and 1995. If not stated otherwise, the first attestation is in Voronkin 1984: 184-185. 4 The awkwardness of this translation is caused by the fact that Yak. tys means ‘leg skin’, and tirī ‘skin in general’, whereas English apparently lacks a single word for tys. 5 Two interpretations have been proposed so far: 1. (Voronkin 1984: 185) ‘byvalo, igrali ešče priezžie ot èvenkov’, and 2. (Stachowski 1995: 556) which assumes that the Com.+Abl. construction used here corresponds exactly to Fr. de chez nous (de = Abl.; chez = Com.). Unfortunately, the context of this sentence, which would most probably explain it unambiguously, is not available. The first explanation holds to-gether with the meaning of Com. in all the other sentences (described under the examples), the latter one stands apart from it. We fear, that having altogether so few examples of compound case suffixes in Yak. & Dolg., and not being given any con-text of this very sentence, no eventual interpretation can be made at the moment.  431 [1.2] The examples can be divided into two groups: 1. where two nouns in Com. are present (the second in [a] and the first in [b]), and 2. where only one noun in Com. is present (all the others). Such a division will prove very helpful in establishing the origin of this construction (see [1.3]). As to the first group, the explanation can be found in Jastremskij 1898: 14 and Stachowski 1995: 555-556, that composition of two nouns in Com. is actually from the semantic point of view a Nom. Examples: Suox-tūn bar-dypn ahātylar [suox-COM. ‘the poor’; bar-COM. ‘the rich’] ‘Both the poor and the rich were eating.’ (Jastremskij 1898: 14); taba-lypn yt-typn [taba-COM. ‘Rentier’; yt-COM. ‘Hund’] ‘das Rentier und der Hund’ (Stachowski 1995: 556). The addition of another case suffix would then be nothing but simply following the government of the verb. It seems that this structure does not have any special name, so let us call it the double Com. conjunction, to be able to refer to it easily later on. The second group does not differ much. Com. plays no rôle of grammatical nature there; it only has a purely semantic function of signifying that the meaning borne by the word is an accompanying one, a sort of additional one, something that could be translated as ‘and; and even, moreover’. It is a co-object rather than an object. The grammatical function of the word is only indicated by the case suffix following the Com. It should be very likely therefore, that the use of Com. in the second group is nothing but an abbreviation of the structure found in the first group. There is already no conjunction (or, it is not pronounced) but the meaning of the word in Com. is just as if there were one.  [1.3] In none of the sources citing the above examples, an attempt has been made at establishing the origin of the structure. Only Voronkin 1984: 185 wonders whether the structure arose in Yak. due to a Mo. or a Ma.Tu. influence, presenting, however, no arguments for either of them. True enough, the other two possibilities, a Russ. influence or the PTkc. legacy, are out of the question here – simply because they lack that or any similar sort of structure. Hopefully, the above brief structural analysis can lead us straight to the solution. It seems relatively easy to imagine a theoretical model describing how that type of double declension could have arisen. 1. Rise of the double Com. conjunction. (Com. – Com. ‘… and …’) 2. Inflecting it. (e.g. Com.+Dat. – Com.+Dat. ‘both for … and for …’) 3. Abbreviating it. (Com. ‘and also …; and even …’) 4. Forming a seperate declensional paradigm based on Com. (e.g. Com.+Dat. ‘and also for …; and even for …’) Some additional explanations are to be done: Ad 1. The double Com. conjunction is missing from Mo., and it is present in the Ma.Tu. languages. Example: Lam. bujur-gəli.w maʒim, oror-gali.w maʒim [bujur-COM.-ACC.; oror-COM.-ACC.] ‘I will kill (maʒim) both the wild reindeers (bujur) and the domesticated reindeers (oror).’ (Benzing 1955:  432 64). Naturally, on theoretical basis, it cannot be excluded that the Yakut have developed the double Com. conjunction on their own. However, as long as no proof can be presented in favour of this possibility, it seems to be much likelier that it is a structural borrowing from Ma.Tu. into Yak. & Dolg.6 Ad 2. The inflection could have begun in one of the following three ways: [i] The idea of inflecting the conjunction was borrowed together with the formation itself.7 In such case points 1. and 2. would merge. [ii] The Yak. have developed the idea on their own, without Ma.Tu. in-fluence. [iii] The idea of inflection was borrowed already after the borrowing of the formation itself. Again, we can present no conclusive evidence in favour of any of the above. It is our belief, nevertheless, that their order reflects very well their likelihood, too. Ad 3. To the best of our knowledge, such an abbreviation does not occur in Ma.Tu. Then, it is most probably a Yak. proper innovation. Ad 4. This point is the most natural consequence of the previous one. Declension is a serial phenomenon and so it should be expected that the double Com. conjunction, too, would be declined through all the cases. It seems, how-ever, that this process has not yet finished, and it most probably never will in terms of creating a complete, separate paradigm, as it would be without any doubt highly confusing, were a Com.-based Nom. created; example: *Ujbān-nypn kelte. ‘1. He came with Ivan; 2. Also/Even Ivan did come’. Thus, it appears to be most likely that the Yakut had borrowed the double Com. conjunction (most probably, altogether with the idea of it being inflected), and having then abbreviated it on their own, are now developing a separate de-clensional paradigm based on it. Counterargument. It could be argued that the Mo. languages, too, know Com.-based compounds8 galore, and that they have not been at all taken into consideration in the above explanation only because of the fact that they lack the double Com. conjunction, whereas it could possibly be nothing but a Yak. en-largement of the Com.-based declension. This is precisely the other way round to                                                  6 Taking this into consideration, it is very interesting indeed that Dolg. examples are less numerous than the Yak. ones. However, this fact may very well be a result of our certainly insufficient knowledge of Dolg. Still, shall future investigations confirm it, it ought to prove extremely helpful (or, should we rather think, just the opposite) in establishing the chronology and geography of Ma.Tu. influence on Yak. 7 This possibility seems to be made even more probable by the fact that almost all case suffixes can be added to the Com. base in Tung. (Poppe, N.: Materjaly dlja issled. tung. jaz., p. 6; cited after Kotwicz 1950: 151). 8 No difference is made here between the Mo. Com., Soc. and Poss. cases – it would be irrelevant since Yak. only has one case with that meaning.  433 what we have assumed above. A closer look at the Mo. Com.-based compound cases should prove helpful to form our definite opinion:9 Com. + Instr.: MMo.ML, WMo.K, PWM Poss. + Gen.: Bur.PC, Klmk.ML, PC, Xlx.PC + Dat.: Bur.PC, Klmk.ML, PC, Xlx.PC, WMo.RT + Dir.: Klmk.ML + Acc.: Bur.PC, S, Klmk.ML, PC, Oir.ML, S, Xlx.PC + Abl.: Bur.PC, Klmk.ML, PC, Xlx.PC + Instr.: Bur.PC, S, Klmk.ML, PC, Oir.S, Xlx.PC, S, WMo.RT + Com.: Klmk.ML, PC + Poss.: Bur.PC, Klmk.ML, PC, Xlx.PC + Iness.: Bur.PC Surprisingly enough, the Com.-based compound has an utterly different meaning from Poss.-based ones, namely, as a matter of fact, its meaning is just the same as that of pure Com. (cf. e.g. Poppe 1954: 155.) Examples: WMo. noyan-luγa.bar ‘together with the prince’; baγši-luγa.bar ‘together with the teacher’; non-classical qatun-lar ‘together with the queen’ (Poppe 1954: 155) (qatun-lar < -la.ar << -luγa.bar); MMo. mal-la.ar ‘together with the property’; eme-le.er.een ‘together with his wife’ (Rybatzki 2003: 69). The reason for com-pounding the suffixes remains thus obscure to us. On the other hand, in the Poss.-based compounds, the function of the Poss. suffix appears certainly to be much more derivational rather than inflectional (cf. e.g. Cèdèndamba 1974: 48-49). Examples: WMo. ečige-dei.ber ‘mit dem, der einen Vater hat’; nükür-tei.dür ‘dorthin, wo jemand mit dem Freund zusammen ist’ (Róna-Tas 1988: 57); Klmk. köwü-tä.d ‘to the one with a son’ (Bläsing 2003: 237); Oir. emäl-tä.g ‘the one with a saddle (Acc.)’ (Birtalan 2003: 218). As it can easily be seen, these meanings differ radically from those of Yak. & Dolg. Com.-based compounds. To our mind, such a deep discrepancy excludes the possibility that the latter could have originated from the Mo. languages, especially given that a semantically identical structure is to be found in Ma.Tu.                                                    9 ML stands here for the suitable one of the following articles: Birtalan 2003: 218 (Oir.); Bläsing 2003: 237 (Klmk.); Rybatzki 2003: 69 (MMo.). Additionally, the following abbreviations have been introduced solely for the sake of transparency of the table: K = Kałużyński 1998; PC = Poppe 1955; PWM = Poppe 1954; RT = Róna-Tas 1988; S = Sanžeev 1953. Most case names are according to them – exceptions are: for Bur.: Iness. (according to Poppe 1955: 208, but despite Skribnik 2003: 108), and for WMo.: Soc. (according to Janhunen 2003: 46 (though missing from the table on p. 47), but despite Róna-Tas 1988: 57).  434 [2] The -lary suffix (Acc. Com., Acc. Coll.)   [2.1] Examples.10  [a] Accompanying Acc. (co-object). aty yŋypr-dary bierbitim ‘I gave back the horse with the saddle’ kinini töbü-lörü, saryn-nary, xara pantalonnāx atax-tary körön ‘having seen him with his head, his back and his legs in black trousers’  [b] Adverbial of time. künüs-teri utujar ‘he also sleeps at daytime’ tüpn-neri ülelīller ‘they also work at night’ kiehe-leri ‘also in the evening’ kyhyn-nary sajyn-nary ‘both in winter and in summer’  [2.2] There is no general consensus on the place of this suffix in Yak. gram-mar, cf. Stachowski 1989: 110-112. It will be, however, not important for us at the moment, as this discussion does not, of course, change the semantics, the scope of use or the etymology of the suffix – and it is the latter that we would like to make a contribution to. The suffix has basically two meanings: the second one ([b]) raises no doubts, as it is very popular in many Tkc. languages (examples: Tksh. sabah-ları ‘every morning’, gece-leri ‘every night’). The only unexpected thing about it is that there is an apparent nuance of additionality in its meaning. This interesting feature can most probably be well enough explained by an influence of the first meaning of the suffix. And, this is precisely what raises uncertainty, as it does not occur anywhere outside Yak.  [2.3] To the best of our knowledge, no etymology of this suffix has been proposed so far. Interestingly enough, it is both phonetically and semantically very similar to the MMo. compound Com.+Instr. case (see examples in [1.3]). In view of the great Mo. influence on Yak., a borrowing of a suffix is certainly not impossible (cf. Kałużyński 1961, particularly pp. 68-118). Especially, that in this case, it must have been facilitated much by the fact that such a compound suffix (-lar ~ -la.ar < -luγa.ar) sounded extremely similar to the Tkc. (including Yak.) Pl. suffix. To that, the Yak. Acc. -(n)y could have been added, by the same token as it has been described in [1.3.2].                                                    10 All examples are from Yak., and can be found in GJa 139-140.  435 A b b r e v i a t i o n s   Anab.Y. = Anabar dialect of Yak.; Bur. = Buryat; Dolg. = Dolgan; Klmk. = Kalmuck; Lam. = Lamut; Ma.Tu. = Manchu-Tungusic; Mnghl. = Mongghul; MMo. = Middle Mongolian; Mo. = Mongolic; Olen.Y. = Oleneck dialect of Yak.; Ord. = Ordos; Oir. = Oirat; PMo. = Proto-Mongolic; PTkc. = Proto-Turkic; Tkc. = Turkic; Tung. = Tungusic; Tksh. = Turkish; WMo. = Written Mongolian; Xlx. = Khalkha; Yak. = Yakut; Yess.Y. = Yessei dialect of Yak.; Žigan.Y. = Ži-gan dial. of Yak.   L i t e r a t u r e   Benzing, J.: Lamutische Grammatik, Wiesbaden 1955, 254 pp. Birtalan, Á.: Oirat. – Mo.Lgs. 210-228. Bläsing, U.: Kalmuck. – Mo.Lgs. 229-247. Cèdèndamba, C.: Očerki po sopostavitelьnoj grammatike russkogo i mongolьskogo jazykov, Ulan-Bator 1974, 135 pp. Demьjanenko, Z. P.: Teksty (Ustь-Avam) (= Skazki narodov sibirskogo severa, v. III), Tomsk 1980, 192 pp. GJa = Ubrjatova, E. I. et al. (eds): Grammatika sovremennogo jakutskogo litera-turnogo jazyka. Fonetika i morfologija, Moskva 1982, 495 pp. Janhunen, J.: Written Mongol. – Mo.Lgs. 30-56. Jastremskij, S. V.: Padežnye suffiksy vъ jakutskomъ jazyke, Irkutskъ 1898, 51 pp. Kałużyński, S.: Mongolische Elemente in der jakutischen Sprache, Warszawa 1961, 170 pp. Kałużyński, S.: Klasyczny język mongolski, Warszawa 1998, 150 pp. Kotwicz, W.: Studia nad językami ałtajskimi. – Rocznik Orientalistyczny 16 (1950): 1-314. Mo.Lgs. = Janhunen, J. (ed.): The Mongolic languages, London – New York 2003, 433 pp. Poppe, N.: Grammar of Written Mongolian, Wiesbaden 1954, 195 pp. — : Introduction to Mongolian comparative studies, Helsinki 1955, 300 pp. Róna-Tas, A.: Mongolisches Lesebuch, Wien 1988, 65 pp. Rybatzki, V.: Middle Mongol. – Mo.Lgs. 57-82. Sanžeev, G. D.: Sravnitelьnaja grammatika mongolьskich jazykov, v. I., Moskva 1953, 240 pp. Skribnik, E.: Buryat. – Mo.Lgs. 102-128. Stachowski, M.: Über die jakutische Deklination. – Ural-Altaische Jahrbücher / Ural-Altaic Yearbook 61 (1989): 97-120. — : Dolganischer Wortschatz, Kraków 1993, 282 pp.  436 — : Der Komitativ im Jakutischen und Dolganischen. – Smoczyński, W. (ed.): Analecta Indoeuropaea Cracoviensia, v. II: Kuryłowicz Memorial Volume. Part One, Kraków 1995: 553-559. Voronkin, M. S.: Severo-zapadnaja gruppa govorov jakutskogo jazyka, Jakutsk 1984, 222 pp.  

On compound cases in Yakut and Dolgan

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