Issues of comparative Uralic and Altaic studies (10): On the local case markers in Mongolic

This paper discusses the diachronic status of the local case markers in Mongolic, as compared with the other “Micro-Altaic” languages. In spite of some striking superfi cial similarities, it is shown that the local case markers in Mongolic, Turkic, and Tungusic have separate origins, though it cannot be ruled out that they have secondarily infl uenced each other in the context of areal contacts. Mongolic has two secondary “dative” (dative-locative) markers, *-DUr and *-D-A-, of which the former is likely to be based on the spatial *dota-r(-) ‘inside’, while the latter involves a combination of the spatial formative *-d- with the primary “locative” (locative-dative) case marker *-A. The suffi xalization of the spatial *dota-r(-) in Mongolic is parallelled by the analogous development of the spatial *doo ‘inside’ in Tungusic. The formal similarity of the spatial roots *dota- and *doo can be accidental, but it could also refl ect a material connection of either the areal or the genetic type.