Kalmyk and Buryat Languages: Conditional Constructs with Converbs and Conjunctions

Introduction. The paper deals with different conditional constructions in Buryat and Kalmyk. Traditionally, the main way to express the conditional meaning in Mongolic languages is a non-finite clause with a converb (there are the conditional form on -bal in Buryat and Khalkha and new marker -xla in Kalmyk). Alongside with it, there are some new conditional constructions with connectives, with conjunction-like markers herbee in Buryat and Khalkha and kemər in Kalmyk co-occurring with a form of conditional converb. The language contact approach presupposes that connectives as well as a structural pattern with a conjunction are frequently borrowed from dominant languages. Thus, the research question of the paper is how to explain the new conditional construction. Results. In particular, the paper discusses the distribution of different types of conditional construction according to the data from Buryat and Kalmyk corpora. It suggests that conjunction-like markers herbee ‘if’ in Buryat and kemər ‘if’ in Kalmyk may be viewed as grammatical interference from Russian. Nevertheless, the form of conditional converb gixlä developing to a connective in Kalmyk is grammaticalized among other forms of the verb gi- ‘say’ and its grammaticalization of a verb of saying to marker of a conditional clause is frequent cross-linguistically.

1. Baranova V. V. Conditional converbs with -хla in the Kalmyk language. In: Bilguudey G. et al. (eds.) Mongolian-Russian Linguistics. Collected Papers. Ulaanbaatar, 2018. Pp. 392–405. (In Russ.)

2. Corpus of the Buryat Language. Available at: http://web-corpora.net/BuryatCorpus/search/ (In Bur.)

3. Corpus of the Kalmyk Language. Available at: http://web-corpora.net/KalmykCorpus/search (In Kalm.)

4. Janhunen J. Mongolian. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2012. 320 p. (In Eng.)

5. Leinonen M. Russian influence on the Ižma Komi dialect. International Journal of Bilingualism. 2009. Vol. 13. No. 3. Pp. 309–329. (In Eng.)

6. Matras Y. Language contact. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 366 p. (In Eng.)

7. Matras Y., Sakel J. (eds.) Grammatical Borrowing in Cross-Linguistic Perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2007. 610 p. (In Eng.)

8. Muhamedowa R. Russian conjunctions in the speech of Kazakhs. International Journal of Bilingualism. 2009. Vol. 13. No. 3. Pp. 331–356. (In Eng.)

9. Potanina O., Filchenko A. Russian contact-induced innovations in Eastern Khanty. Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2016. Vol. 12. No. 2. Pp. 27–39. (In Eng.)

10. Pyurbeev G. Ts. Kalmyk Grammar: Syntax. 2nd ed., rev. Elista: Kalmyk Humanities Research Institute (RAS), 2010. 299 p. (In Russ.)

11. Rákos A. Synchronic and Diachronic Comparative Analysis of the Oirad Dialects. Budapest: Eötvös Loránd University, 2015. 167 p. (In Eng.)

12. Yamakoshi Ya. ‘Insubordination’ in Mongolic languages. In: Mongolian Studies and Sustainable Development. Ulaanbaatar, 2017. Pp. 289–292. (In Mong.)