Institute for Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Ulan-Ude, Russian Federation
This paper investigates the marker -DAl in the Buryat language, which has been variously interpreted in Mongolic studies as a comparative suffix/particle or as a fusion of the dative-locative suffix -DA and the focus particle le/l. Based on a corpus-driven analysis, the study demonstrates that both forms coexist in modern Buryat, representing distinct stages of a reanalysis and grammaticalization process (moving from “less grammatical” to “more grammatical” status). The evolutionary trajectory is reconstructed as follows: NP-DA adli (‛similar to NP’) > NP-DA-l adli (‛so similar to NP’ / ‛exactly like NP’) > NP-DAl (‛like NP’). This transition is accompanied by a semantic shift from equative to metaphorical comparison. Furthermore, the study explores how various morpheme combinations involving -DAl have achieved independent grammatical status. For event comparison, -DAl attaches to participial predicates via the nominalizer jüüme(n) (‛the thing that’), forming the postposition yüüme(n)del (‛as if’). When combined with the past participle -hAn, it creates the comparative “quasi-converb” -hAndAl. Specifically, the form gehendel (derived from the citation verb ge-) has grammaticalized into a conjunction meaning ‛as if saying’. This conjunction allows the speaker to interpret the motivations of others by framing them as internal speech. The article concludes that the “adventures” of -DAl highlight the dynamic nature of Buryat morphology and its capacity for complex functional expansion.
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