open access

https://doi.org/10.14943/97229

https://hdl.handle.net/2115/80934

On the Contrastive Use of the 3rd Person Possessive Particle ni in Mongolian : A Comparison with」apaneseContrastive wa

日本語

構文パターン

2021-03-20

Japan Association of Northern Language Studies

Northern Language Studies

11

267-286

The purpose of this paper is to consider the contrastive usage and characteristic of Mongolian third person possessive particle ni by comparing it with wa in Japanese, which has the contrastive usage. Following Noda (1996), we first divide the contrastive wa into two types, namely contrast-only type and contrast/topic amphibious type. Also, the contrastive construction is divided into four types (pattern 1-4). With these classifications, we compare Mongolian ni with Japanese wa. Considering the number of examples, Japanese wa is mainly used as the contrast/topic amphibious type. This is because wa is mainly used as the topic marker, not the contrast marker. On the other hand, it is not clear which is the main usage of Mongolian ni. From the perspective of syntax, it is common for the topic wa and the contrast wa to co-occur in the case of the contrast-only type wa. Conversely, the concurrence is not preferred in Mongolian. Mongolian alternatively uses φ in the position where Japanese uses the topic wa. A number of examples show that the contrastive wa is mainly used in pattern 1 and 4 and the contrastive ni in pattern 4. Regarding pattern 3, we could not find any examples. However, this does not mean that pattern 3 is nonexistent. On the other hand, the syntactic distribution does not show any notable difference in pattern 1. In pattern 2 and 4, however, Mongolian ni can co-occur with interrogative words and have the usage of contrast while it is unlikely that Japanese wa co-occurs with interrogative words. Furthermore, in pattern 4 of both languages the predicates can be easily omitted since the two predicates are often the same.

紀要論文

Version of Record

2185-7121

AA12516968