Studies in Mongolic Historical Morphology

The volume Studies in Mongolic Historical Morphology is the revised version of Béla Kempf's PhD dissertation defended at the University of Szeged, Hungary, in 2009. The book gives an examination of the verbalization processes as observed in the Middle Mongol period of Mongolic language history (13th-16th centuries). As primary source the Secret History of the Mongols, the epic chronicle of the Mongols was taken, which in many ways is their most ancient record. Of the 1,100 verb types of the text, more than 380 are discussed in detail. 37 derivational verb-forming suffixes are dealt with, 15 of which are deverbal verb suffixes and 22 denominal ones. Descriptions of the derivational elements traceable from this stage of the language include characterizations of the stems to which the suffix may be added, the distributional rules of the suffix and describing the function of the suffix, based on the semantic field of the derived verbs. If possible, every statement of characterization is exemplified by lexical data taken from the Secret History of the Mongols.