A cognitive approach to event structures in Middle Mongolian based on the corpus "The secret history of the Mongols"

Narmandakh, Enkhmaa (2018): A cognitive approach to event structures in Middle Mongolian based on the corpus "The secret history of the Mongols". Dissertation, LMU München: Faculty for Languages and Literatures

Abstract

This dissertation entitled “A Cognitive Approach to Event Structures in Middle Mongolian Based on the corpus ‘The Secret History of the Mongols’” considers itself an empirical study. It deals with the question of how the underlying language knowledge, which manifests in the language usage of the one or more (here: anonymous) authors, can be derived from a historically transmitted text corpus such as the “Secret History Mongols”. It intends to analyze methodically the totality of verbal relevant phenomena in Middle Mongolian as they appear in the text corpus with 29,396 lexemes from a cognitive-typological point of view. The aim was also to provide a basic typology of verb formation by systematically examining the data for patterns of usage (usage-based) in terms of their frequency as well as the associated markedness because this provides evidence for the degree of language usage. It can be assumed that no linguistic element is independent in its meaning from its textual environment which is especially evident in the phrase units, thus each linguistic element has a meaning/function that is relevant to a larger embedding construction. The structure of a text can be compared to the structure of an “onion” in which all layers are related with each other as part of a whole, with each layer expressing a linguistic sign. In this process, patterns are revealed in all layers, which in turn are analyzed for their semanticity.

• Item Type: Theses (Dissertation, LMU Munich)
• Keywords: Event Structures, Middle Mongolian, Corpus Linguistics, Cognitive Linguistics, Word Formation, Semantics of Verbs
• Faculties: Faculty for Languages and Literatures
• Language: English
• Date of oral examination: 9. July 2018
• 1. Referee: Schulze, Wolfgang
• Signature of the printed copy: 0001/UMC 26132