할하 몽골어 습관상 (Habitual) 동명사 어미 -dag에 대한 어휘적 제약

Abstract

This paper examines lexical restrictions on the Habitual suffix -dag in Khalkha Mongolian. The habitual aspect is defined in terms of two semantic features: i) iterativity, ii) an extended period of time. It is revealed in this paper that not only active but also stative and generic situations can be expressed in the Habitual -dag in Khalkha Mongolian. When the Habitual occurs with stative situations, it expresses only part of the prototypical meanings of the habitual: an extended period of time. With generic situations, the Habitual -dag refers to the regularity or consistency of the situation. But it is also pointed out that not all stative situations are compatible with the suffix. Some copula predicates with adjectives such as describing inherent property or colour, are not allowed to occur with the suffix -dag. We have also seen that lexical restriction in the Mongolian Habitual interacts with the temporal reference. The lexical restriction is mostly confined to non-past time reference. When the time reference is past, the lexical restriction is not applicable any more. This seems to be related with the cross-linguistic phenomenon that the habitual aspect is more naturally realised in describing past situations rather than non-past situations.