Acta Mongolica

Front page and contents

2024-12-31T12:14:32+08:00

Perspectives on Poverty and Respect in Mongolia

2024-04-25T16:13:31+08:00

This article examines the complex and nuanced perspectives on poverty and respect in Mongolia, focusing on terms, taboos, and taxonomies surrounding poverty and their implications for a culturally appropriate phrasing. It highlights challenges of translations from a seemingly international development jargon into Mongolian, which often appear inadequate or even counterproductive.

Our research is based on a mixed-method pilot study investigating the connotations of Mongolian terms related to poverty. Through surveys, interviews, discourse analysis, etymological and semantic studies of poverty-related terms, the authors explored social challenges perceived by Mongolians including experiences of discrimination faced by those in ‘difficult living conditions’.

Moreover, we investigated the societal tendency to avoid addressing poverty directly in order to find out how it is connected to structural discrimination and the perpetuation of social inequalities. Given that terms may be acceptable in one context but disrespectful and stigmatizing in another, the authors advocate for a culturally sensitive use of terms. Based on the findings of our study, we provide constructive suggestions for a more appropriate terminology that focuses on empowerment and the expansion of opportunities. This analysis contributes to the understanding of complex dynamics between language, poverty, and social inclusion in Mongolia.

The Mongol “Other”

2023-10-11T23:31:28+08:00

The Mongol Empire, founded by Chinggis Khan (Чингис хаан)[1], was the most extense empire in history. It covered a vast area from eastern China to southern Persia, and reached Hungary in the west. The empire’s fast growth in the 13th century surprised the whole world, including Western Europe which knew little about the Mongols, often called Tartars, at that time. This study analyses how these portrayals were different according to the authors’ contact with the Mongols, and how they changed over a few decades, from viewing them as an enigmatic ally against Islam or a negligible pagan society, to being considered “wild barbarians” and eventually an exotic, mysterious and powerful nation. This paper suggests that Mongol representations in chronicles, letters, and travel accounts were influenced by factors such as cultural differences, geographical distance, and European political and religious identities. It provides valuable insight into how the West perceived the Mongols during the 13th century, illuminating the broader cultural and historical context of the time.

[1] To ensure accuracy and clarity, all Mongolian names will be provided along with their transliterated forms in the Cyrillic alphabet, considering the variations that may appear in Western sources

Learners’ changes in the self-assessment of Mongolian language ability

2024-06-27T16:28:29+08:00

In this paper, we used the CEFR self-assessment checklist to investigate whether there was any change in the student’s self-assessment of Mongolian proficiency within a period of about three months, from the start to the end of the course. Participants included 37 international students of the Mongolian language course at the National University of Mongolia. The results of the survey found that the average value of student self-assessment was significantly higher before the end of the course than after the start of the course, at both the elementary and intermediate levels. In addition, the average value of self- assessment was significantly higher before the end of the course in all areas of each level.

The Moral Force of Labor in Mongolia's Late-stalinist Literature

2024-06-13T15:43:06+08:00

The Mongolian people expect to see in art and culture the true situation in this new era, and to feel the greatest satisfaction. They want literature and art, in the broadest possible terms, to express the ideology and culture which they so value. As Comrade Zhdanov has said, “Our people’s spiritual wealth is no less important than their material wealth.” In addition to the important changes which have altered the face of our nation, we have also continued to change ourselves, and it is important that literature portrays these new qualities of our people. Literature should show our people not only as they are today, but also how they will be tomorrow, thus illuminating their path ahead. This is the honorable role of Mongolian writers. Writers are not dragged along by what might happen, but rather they lead the people, and show them the path of progress.

Modern 'Nomadic' Civilisation

2024-08-23T14:50:40+08:00

In the last 40 years, Mongolia has been forming a nation-state free from external influences and colonial policies. This paper1 aims to discuss how the discourse about nomadic cultures and civilizations has changed over time and how it impacted people and institutions in post-socialist Mongolia. Furthermore, it investigated how reflexive new concepts and public policies on nomadic civilization have formed. The paper argues that Mongolia is developing the so-called nomadic civilization to resist the cultural hegemony of foreign countries and institutions and unify its people. Moreover, this paper contributes to the academic debates about how civilizational populism is used in foreign policies and national politics. This study used discourse analysis and ethnographic observations since the 1990s.

Mongol *da “two” And Its Derivatives

2024-08-23T14:43:27+08:00

The following article delves into the hypothetical root *da, which is the basis of several formations in the Mongolic languages. My assumption is that this stem bears the meaning “two”, although it is not attested in this form anymore, only its various derivatives. The goal of this article is to shed light on these formations and to analyze their morphology and etymology.

Two types of D-licensing approach to Nominative/Genitive Conversion in Japanese

2024-12-29T20:53:21+08:00

This study discusses two analyses within the D-licensing approach to Nominative/Genitive Conversion (NGC), a phenomenon observed in Altaic languages such as Japanese, Turkish, and Mongolian. Japanese generative grammarians have endeavored to elucidate the case-alternation system, identifying two approaches: D-licensing and C-licensing approaches. The former assumes that the genitive case on the subject DP is licensed by the D-head of the hostmain noun, while the latter assumes that it is licensed by the C-head of the prenominal clause. the a -as Both approaches exhibit advantages and disadvantages; we focus on however, this study focuses on the former approach, study omitting discussion of the latter. A crucial aspect of the D-licensing approach revolves around the size of the prenominal clause, TP. Nevertheless, the traditional D-licensing approach analytical framework encounters challenges when dealing with NGC involved in nominative object constructions. Recently, a new analysis under the D-licensing approach has been proposed, in which the licensor is D, but the size of the prenominal clause is CP. We contend that this novel analysis raises some concerns as a result of the adopted assumptions. Therefore, we propose substituting by them with Chomsky’s labeling algorithm and Saito’s anti-labeling devices method. Additionally, we discuss dialectical variations in NGC, exploring Hitiku and Osaka Japanese, as well as the same drawing parallels with Mongolian.

Weak Heads at the Interface

2024-12-29T21:08:09+08:00

This paper proposes that weak heads in Chomsky’s (2015) sense are not only syntactically weak (i.e., unable to provide a label on their own), but also morpho-phonologically weak. To illustrate how this works, this paper examines temporal adverbial clauses (TACs) in Japanese, showing that the presence/absence of what we call Geis-ambiguity in Japanese TACs correlates with the presence/absence of yori ‘than’ in the clauses. Based on Miyamoto’s (1996) argument that this ambiguity arises due to operator movement, we propose that there is a covert weak head which hosts the relevant operator in its specifier. Crucially, the weak head in question can only be present in the presence of its morpho-phonological host, i.e., yori. We further demonstrate that this covert weak head, unlike an overt noun, cannot be referred to by a null resumptive element, and suggest that the weakness in the labeling sense could potentially lead to weakness at LF.

Contiguity Theory and the word order of reduced nominals in Mongolian

2024-12-29T21:52:34+08:00

This paper discusses the word order properties of object nouns and adverbs in Mongolian. As is well known, the accusative case marker appears only sometimes on the object. I review Guntsetseg’s (2016) in depth discussion on differential object marking and pseudo noun incorporation in Mongolian and present some prior work on the prosody of these two constructions (Barrie and Kang, 2022). I show that a caseless non-specific object can be separated from the verb by at most a low VP-adverb. A case-marked or specific, caseless object cannot appear between the verb and a low VP-adverb. Furthermore, a case-marked or specific, caseless object can appear above a higher, temporal adverb, but a caseless, non-specific object cannot. I analyze these facts within a Contiguity Theoretic framework (Richards, 2016) starting with the premise that a caseless non-specific object is an nP and that case-marked or caseless, specific object is a full KP. I argue that an nP object must be contiguity prominent with its selector, the verb, only and that a KP object must be contiguity prominent first with the verb and then with v, which assigns it accusative Case. I show that maintaining contiguity prominence gives rise to the patterns discussed.

A Theory of Coordinate Structure Formation and “Across-the-Board Movement”

2024-12-29T22:07:16+08:00

This paper offers a new analysis of “Across-the-Board (ATB)-movement” that is based on a particular theory of coordinate structure formation. It proposes an operation for forming coordinate structures that can conjoin not only (i) syntactic objects that have not been merged with any other syntactic objects (i.e. roots) but also (ii) syntactic objects that have already been parts of larger syntactic objects (i.e. non-roots), which I dub Coordinate Structure Formation (CSF). It is then proposed that “ATB-movement” should be taken to be a result of application of CSF of the type (ii). To support this hypothesis, it will be shown (a) that an element to be “ATB-moved” has two (or more) occurrences at early stages of the derivation, one occurrence each in the two or more (constituents that later become) conjuncts, (b) that each of these occurrences of the element to be “ATB-moved” is moved successive cyclically within a constituent that later becomes a conjunct but they are later unified into one occurrence, and (c) that the stage of the derivation where they are unified can be identified with the stage of the derivation where the relevant conjunction structure is formed.

Case valuation in Ga/No Conversion in Japanese*

2024-12-29T22:19:10+08:00

This paper explicates the mechanism of the nominative (ga) and genitive (no) alternation (so-called ga/no conversion) in Japanese, focusing on the fact that the genitive (unlike the nominative) subject cannot be followed by the accusative object (transitivity restriction: TR). It is demonstrated that the TR is derived as labeling failure in the labeling analysis proposed by Chomsky (2013, 2015) with some extensions involving the Case/case valuation mechanism. The comparison between standard Japanese (SJ) and Kumamoto Japanese (KJ), a dialect spoken in Kyushu reveals that the parametric difference in C with regard to the existence of the nominal feature [+N] can explain the differences of the distribution of the genitive subjects between SJ and KJ, and implies the position of the second nominative subject/object in multiple nominative and nominative object constructions.

Nominative subjects can’t move to the left periphery in Japanese

2024-12-29T22:32:00+08:00

This paper attempts to argue convincingly that nominative subjects in Japanese cannot move to Spec-C if they are phonetically realized; in fact, they should remain in Spec-T from the viewpoint of the nominative case assignment mechanism in Japanese.

Null Arguments in EA Languages Revisited

2024-12-29T23:17:18+08:00

The main question this paper addresses is what makes argument ellipsis in Japanese (and Korean) possible. It first presents evidence for the LF copying analysis of the phenomenon. Then, it proposes that Japanese allows ellipsis of all sorts of arguments due to two factors. The first is the absence of j-feature agreement. A DP antecedent copied into an ellipsis site at LF lacks unvalued features and cannot participate in j-feature agreement because of the activation condition. Therefore, the absence of j-feature agreement is a prerequisite for argument ellipsis. The second factor is the presence of suffixal Cases and predicate inflections as weak heads that are unable to provide labels. One of the crucial assumptions in this paper is Norvin Richards’ hypothesis that ellipsis sites count as heads in syntactic structure. It is shown that it makes structures with elided arguments unlabeled in many languages. For example, the straightforward structure with an elided complement would be {H, H}. Then, it is argued that Case markers and predicate inflections as weak heads enable the structures with elided arguments to be properly labeled. Finally, some languages that allow object ellipsis but not subject ellipsis are considered. Chinese, for example, lacks not only j-feature agreement but also Case markers, and allows object ellipsis. It is suggested that Case feature sharing makes the labeling of {H, H} structure possible in this case.

Reduced Embedded Questions with Multiple Wh-phrases in Chakhar Mongolian

2024-12-29T23:40:21+08:00

This paper provides a detailed description of reduced embedded questions with multiple wh-phrases in Chakhar Mongolian and proposes to analyze them in terms of a reduced cleft analysis. We argue that reduced questions with multiple wh-phrases in Chakhar Mongolian can be directly derived by applying subject ellipsis, which is independently allowed in Chakhar Mongolian, to presuppositional clauses of embedded multiple cleft sentences. Our proposal is supported by observations that reduced questions and multiple cleft construction in Chakhar Mongolian exhibit parallel properties, including case-marked wh-phrases and adherence to the clause-mate condition.

Subject agreement in Kalmyk: Implications for nominative case assignment

2024-12-29T23:53:06+08:00

This paper investigates the nature of nominative case assignment and its relationship to agreement and finiteness in Kalmyk Oirat (or Kalmyk), a variety of the Oirat language (Mongolic) spoken in the Republic of Kalmykia, Russia and in diasporic communities in the US and Europe. Subject agreement in Kalmyk exhibits a puzzling relationship with nominative case assignment: while φ-agreement can only be with nominative subjects, we also find nominative subjects in environments where φ-agreement is not possible. This challenges theories of case assignment which take nominative case and subject agreement to always go together as the result of a single Agree operation (Chomsky 2000, 2001). I propose that this set of facts can be accounted for under a view where nominative case assignment does not depend on Agree with finite T0, and φ-agreement is the result of an Agree operation that is sensitive to the nominal’s case value (Bobalijk 2008; Preminger 2014).

Reconsidering non-negative contexts as a diagnostic for negative concord

2024-12-30T00:09:50+08:00

Non-negative contexts are often used as a diagnostic for negative concord items, the claim being specifically that these contexts are not suitable hosts for negative concord items. We present an in-depth empirical investigation of how a single polarity sensitive item behaves under negation as compared to in non-negative contexts. To our knowledge, this is the first detailed investigation of its kind. The item we focus on is Turkish kimse ‘anyone’, and beyond the fact that kimse can appear in non-negative contexts, it otherwise behaves as a negative concord item. The evidence we collected shows, on balance, that kimse has highly parallel behavior across these contexts. We conclude there is no significant difference across contexts, and thus that in principle negative concord items can be licensed in non-negative contexts. Accordingly, the ability of a polarity sensitive item to appear in a non-negative context cannot be a valid cross-linguistic diagnostic for negative concord items.

Temporal -made in Japanese and its interaction with aspect and polarity

2024-12-30T00:24:40+08:00

The main puzzle that Japanese -made gives rise to is that it has two uses, the until-use and the by-use. In this paper we attempted to analyze the two uses uniformly. The core idea is that in both uses -made introduces domain alternatives, and a phonologically null alternative-sensitive operator introduces additional inferences based on them. We employed two such operators, exc and exh. The former accounts for the until-use, as in Alxatib’s 2023 account of English until. The latter plays a crucial role in our account of the infelicity of the combination of the by-use of -made and a durative predicate as well as of the obviation effects.

Introduction

2024-12-29T20:47:04+08:00