Ebook: On the origin of the narrative converb in Eastern and Western Yugur

Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. In Turcologica 78. Transeurasian verbal morphology in a comparative perspective: genealogy, contact, chance, 2010, 129 - 139 p.This paper aims to discuss the origins of the Eastern Yugur converb-(G)AA and its Western Yugur counterpart-GA, which both function mainly as narrative converbs. The etymology of this converb suffix is not straightforward. Within modern Mongolic an equivalent may be the Mongghul converb-AA, with extended alternative form -AAnu. Dagur-(G)AA may be another cognate, although this is considered (as in Enkhbat, 63I and Zhong, 63) to be an alternant of -(G)AAr (. *-Ad). Given the functional and formal similarity between these suffixes, it is tempting to simply derive Eastern Yugur -(G)AA and the Mongghul and Dagur forms from *-Ad. However,from a purely phonetic viewpoint, the loss of final -d would be exceptional in all three languages.