From spatial noun to addressee-oriented demonstrative Khalkha Mongolian naa-d=čin and caa-d=čin

Brosig B. Guntsetseg D.
12 December 2025 John Benjamins Publishing Company

Journal of Historical Linguistics
2025 #15 Issue 2 230 - 262 pp.

Khalkha Mongolian has recruited two new, addressee-oriented demonstratives from the spatial nouns naa- close side of and caa- remote side of with the attribute- or argument-referring suffix -d. With proximal naa-d, the addressee is close to and can sense the referent; with distal caa-d, the referent is somewhat distant from the addressee. In their demonstrative function, naa-d/caa-d usually combine with either the second person possessive clitic =čin or with a second person subject and the reflexive-possessive clitic =AA, so as to render orientation towards the addressee explicit (e.g., naa-d xün=čin the person on your remote side), though these markers can be left out under certain circumstances. Distributionally, demonstrative naa-d/caa-d resemble the speaker-centered demonstratives en this and ter that rather than other spatial nouns such as dee-d upper. Among other spatial cases forms, the locatives naa-n/caa-n can express addressee-orientation, while allatives in -š(AA) cannot. Naa-d/caa-d also fulfill discourse-deictic anaphoric uses.

addressee-centered demonstrative , epistemological authority , grammaticalization , Khalkha-Mongolian , spatial noun , visual demonstrative

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Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan
University of Bern, Switzerland
Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich, Germany

Nazarbayev University
University of Bern
Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich

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