COMPARACIÓN EN FUNCIÓN DE OTROS PUNTOS DE CORTE DE GPT

The form -v has been called modally “neutral,” for example by Song (1997: 193–204, 2002: 149), and “colorless” (Street 1963: 122), not

with-out reason. But then it is paradoxical to discover that -v “can replace only the [-lee] ending,” while the “[-jee ending] cannot be replaced” by it, the reason being that “for sure” “the written [-v] ending is used when the speaker observed the action.” That is, -v would appear to be evi-dential, like -lee. Sodnomdorj has also commented that the difference between baiv and bailaa is “just stylistic,” adding that in a certain text

“baiv could have been [the] same” as bailaa. And regarding texts such as that in (82), he said that “alternating [-v] and [-lee] forms avoids repetition” and hence is stylistically preferable. The question, then, is whether -v is evidential or modally neutral. It is a question explored below (and which turns out to be considerable more complicated, and more interesting, than Sodnomdorj’s comments alone suggest.) 82. Tereer ger.t.ee erge.j or.j

he house-dat-rp return-impfc enter-impfc

ire.x.d.ee yadar.č, biye n’ yangina.n come-ifvn-dat-rp be tired-impfc body his ache-modc övd.sön bai.laa. Namaig ire.xe.d ter xet fall ill-pfvn be-past me-acc come-ifvn-dat that excessive

ix xüč garga.sn.aas bas xet ix sanaa great effort put out-pfvn-abl also excessive great thought

tav’.sn.aas zürx.eer n’ xatguula.n övdö.j bai.v.

put-pfvn-abl heart-instr his feel pain-modc fall ill-impfc be-past (www.lds.org/library/display/0,4945,538–1–2874–12,00.html )

‘He returned to the house exhausted and in pain. When I arrived, he was experiencing heart pain from overexertion and stressful anxiety.’

(http://www.lds.org/library/display/0,4945,538–1–2874–1,00.html ) Even apart from evidentiality, however, -v has a modal dimension, as Ramstedt notes (p. 20): “Like the preterite in many other languages, this preterite is also used in Khalkha in order to indicate a hypothetical fact [supponiertes faktum],” as in (83).⁷²

72 Ramstedt’s transcription has been slightly modified. xīwǟ = xiivee, an emphatic form of the past tense of xii- ‘do, make’.

83. eŋgәs xīwǟ g̜or-ug^uē, t’eŋgәs xīwǟ, bas This way do-past without working that way do-past also g̜or-ug^uē.

without working

‘mache ich es so, so geht es nicht, mache ich es wieder anders, so geht das auch nicht.’

(‘if I do it this way, it doesn’t work, and if I do it that way, it also does not work.’)

Such modal, non-past-time uses of the -v past tense are in line with ones examined by James (1982) in a wide range of languages. How-ever, Wu (1995: 102) points out a rarely-commented-upon future hypothetical use of the -v ending, saying that the suffix:

can also be used to indicate that something may happen at some time in the future; e.g., hypothetical states or conjectures about the results of certain actions that are felt by the speaker to occur in the future are usually marked with [-v].

He offers the following examples (84–85):

84. ta mori.ača.ban qayaγda.ba aa!

you (plural ) horse-abl-rp fall-past emphp

‘Be careful, you might fall down from the horse.’

85. kičiyel.eče.ben qočor.ba aa!

class-abl-rp be late-past emphp

‘Be careful, you’ll be late for class!’

He draws (p. 110) similar Dagur examples from Engkebatu (1985: 35) and Yellow Uygur ones from Bulchuluu (1988: 37f.), and points out that Poppe (1955: 266f.) remarks on similar usages in Buriat and Kal-muck, calling them “a form of warning.” He further notes (Ujeyediin 1998) that this “use of the suffix is only associated with the second per-son subject and it cannot be used with the first and third perper-sons.”

However, Wu (p. 103) also offers some examples (86–87) in which -v has future value without a hypothetical reading. He attributes such future meaning to the semantics of the auxiliary verb in each case.

Here, unlike the hypothetical-future examples, the non-past -ne can-not in fact be substituted for -v, he says.

86. nara unu.qu siqa.ba sun fall-ifvn be close-past

‘The sun will set very soon.’ [Roughly, ‘the sun setting is close.’—rb]

87. tere kür.čü ire.kü oyirta-ba that arrive-impfc come-ifvn be close-past

‘He will arrive soon.’⁷³ [‘His arrival is close.’—rb]

He comments upon different attitudes and intentions on the part of the speaker associated with the -v and -sen pasts. Thus in the -v sen-tences in (88), “the speaker [is] trying to be polite or wishing someone well. Although one can replace [-v] with [-sen] as in [89], the resulting sentences lack the meanings implied by the [-v] suffix as in [88].”

88. a. ta sayin saγu-ba uu?

you (plural ) good stay-past qp

‘Are you keeping well?’

b. ta sayin unta-ba uu?

you (plural ) good sleep-past qp

‘Did you sleep well?’

c. ta amur ire-be üü?

you (plural ) peaceful come-past qp

‘Did you have a good trip?’

89. a. ta sayin sagu-γsan uu?

b. ta sayin unta-γsan uu?

c. ta amur ire-gsen üü?

He then offers examples (90–91), with -v and -sen respectively, saying (1995: 101) that a sentence like those in (90)

is used when the speaker is mainly concerned with whether or not the event is accomplished and with indicating that he knows, or at least sup-poses, that the event should have been done.

Thus in (90a) below,

the speaker is concerned with whether or not you have finished reading the book that you are supposed . . . to have finished reading . . . and, by implication, questions why you haven’t. . . . Therefore the proper transla-tion should be something like ‘You finished reading the book, didn’t you?’.

90. a. ta nom.iyan ungsi.ba uu?

you (plural ) book-rp read-past qp

‘Did you read your book?’

73 Wu offers the literal glosses ‘the sun was close to setting or the sun is setting’ and

‘he was close to arriving’.

b. ta γaγčaγar.iyan ire.be üü?

you (plural ) yourself-instr come-past qp

‘Did you come by yourself ?’

c. ta ger.tegen qari.ba uu you (plural ) home-dat rp return-past qp

‘Did you go back home?’

Examples like those in (91) lack such an implicit meaning and are sim-ply normal interrogatives. There clearly is far more to the “colourless”

-v than most grammars have indicated.⁷⁴

91. a. ta nom.iyan ungsi.γsan uu? [‘Did you read your book(s)?’]

b. ta γaγčaγar.iyan ire.gsen üü? [‘Did you come alone?’]

c. ta ger-tegen qari.γsan uu? [‘Did you return home?’]

Before looking further at -v, let us turn to -jee and the issue of whether it forms the inferential counterpart of -lee.