Ok, it's been a little while since there's been any activity here on the Mongolian thread (partly my fault), but let's try to fix that!
I finally have gotten the reference grammar by R. Kullmann and D. Tserenpil (yay!), so I figured I'd revise (as necessary) the posts thus far.
[I must say that Colloquial Mongolian is not the best starting book for learning Mongolian, the grammar explanations are hit-and-miss and the verbs are not dealt with properly. The authors do not give the stems! They just give you the infinitive and (I would assume) they hope that you know how to figure out the stem (which is near impossible as far as I know), or have a good dictionary that gives them. All that being said, I might switch to my other textbook, but I'll stick with 'Colloquial' for a little longer (have to at least give it a chance). Not sure if anyone else agrees with my assessment, but I suppose that if it works for you, go for it.]
Ok, now that the 'ranting' is over . . .
[The explanations will be my interpretation/paraphrasing of the explanations in "Mongolian Grammar"]
GenitiveOk, here are the 'case-endings' for the genitive:
Ending | Usage |
-ын | "strong words" with short vowels* \ consonants except 'н' |
-ы | "strong words" in 'н'** |
-ийн | "weak words" with short vowels* \ consonants except 'н' |
-ий | "weak words" with 'н'** |
-н | diphthongs |
*In words that have short vowels at the end of the word these vowels are often dropped before the case ending is added
**Including 'hidden н'
Now where Kullmann and Tserenpil (Mongolian Grammar) say 'strong' and 'weak' words they are talking about the vowels in the word. These are different terms to distinguish vowel harmony.
Strong words = back vowels
Weak words = front vowels
[I'll try to stay with 'front' and 'back' from here on out]
Now there are a few exceptions to the rules:
ending | usage | instead of |
-ийн | words ending in (и, ь) [which are dropped] \ consonants (ж, ч, ш, к, г*) | -ын |
*г is for both 'hidden г' and for words that end in a long vowel, long vowels require an inserted 'г' before an ending is added.
Some examples:
-ын
зорилго -- зорилгын
ном -- номын
-ийн
говь -- говийн
сан(г)*-- сангийн
залуу -- залуугийн
*(г) at the end of a word = 'hidden г'
like-wise (н) at the end of a word = 'hidden (or 'fleeting', as referenced above) н'
(Above examples are from the book itself, all credit goes to the authors!)
I think that will do it for now, don't want to confuse anyone. More to come later. Enjoy!