The derivational nest in mongolian studies in China and Russia

This paper is devoted to a comparative analysis of the structure of the derivational nest in Mongolian studies in China and Russia. Mongolian studies in China date back to the mid-20th century, and it starts in Russia at the same time. Studies of the grammar of the Buryat (Ts. B. Tsydendambaev) and Mongolian (Chingeltey) languages confirmed the identity of the fundamental, constitutive signs of their order. There are two main parts in the derivative word in these languages: the root ( ijaγur ) and the suffix ( daγaburi ), but there are no prefixes and infixes. Suffixes have either a lexical or grammatical meaning or combine both values. It is noted that the root morphemes are used as independent words, and the roots that are not used without any suffixes are classified as non-independent. The order of morphemes in the derivative word in Mongolian languages is represented by a chain, with the root in the beginning followed by the word-formative suffix, inflectional suffix, and the inflectional finite suffix. The features of these three principles of the derivational nest structure are illustrated by the example of a word with the meaning «horse». Specificity of the structure of the word-building nest in Chinese Mongolian studies (in the Dictionary of Root Words of the Old Mongolian Language) consists in the linear arrangement of derived words (chain principle). The Russian Mongolology, following Russiology, applies the step-by-step principle of the nest structure (the word-formation dictionary of the Kalmyk language), Buryat linguistics proposes a cluster principle (D. Sh. Haranutova). The peculiarity of this principle is that the primary non-derivative bases resemble the tree trunk (or the top of the nest): branches come from the trunk, then sprouts come that gather into clusters of derivatives. The derivatives are chain-wise fixed on the vertical axis as branches, and along the horizontal axis - as bunches, depending on the degree of distance from the trunk (from the root shoot). Based on the comparative study of the principles of the structure of the word-building nest in Mongolian languages, the authors came to the conclusion that the main principle must be recognized as a step-by-step principle that can be supplemented with cluster principle. Emphasis is placed on the need to accompany the elements of the nest with a brief interpretation in the original language.

Keywords

Authors

References