The Altaic Languages Are Agglutinative in Word Structure
The Altaic Languages Are Agglutinative in Word Structure
the third person, Altaic languages use demonstrative pronouns; they is literally these or those. The
possessive forms of pronouns are widely used in lieu of definite articles.
The morphology of the verb is especially complex, though few of the languages have personal endings
marking agreement in person and number with the subject of the verb, and there is no grammatical
category of mood. Etymologically, almost all verbal forms have a nominal origin.
Apart from finite verb forms, which serve as the main verbs of independent clauses, Altaic languages have
participles or verbal nouns, which may act as nouns or adjectives and which form phrases translating the
relative clauses of other languages; converbs or gerunds, which may act as adverbs or complements to
verbs or serve as the main verbs of subordinate clauses; and so-called imperative or vocative forms, which
serve special functions and typically form clauses of very limited structural types. In Turkic, verbal nouns
that act solely as derived nouns occur alongside the participles. The precise roles played by tense,
grammatical aspect, and mood in the semantics of the various affixes remain an object of study, especially
where Manchu-Tungus is concerned.
The Turkic verb is built on a set of stemspresent, future, aorist, necessitative, conditional, subjunctive,
and two past tensesto which may be added a series of affixes marking tense or mood distinctions in
order to form finite forms, as in the case of gel-iyor-du-ysa-m, the evidential past conditional of the present
stem of the verb gel- to come, or affixes forming participles and verbal nouns; there are also numerous
gerunds. Turkic distinguishes an evidential past tenseused when the speaker has witnessed the events
or the events are common knowledgefrom an inferential pastwhere the events have been reported to,
or inferred by, the speaker.
Mongolian and Manchu-Tungus also are rich in verb morphology, despite lacking such a system of stems.
Classical Mongolian has 5 finite verb forms (3 present tenses and 2 pasts, the meanings of which remain
under study); 10 converbs and 6 verbal nouns, distinguished as to relative tense or grammatical aspect;
and 7 or 8 imperative forms. The Manchu verb may incorporate one or more auxiliary verbs, as in afa-mbi-he-bi had been attacking, which is analyzed as to attack-[imperfect converb]-to be-[perfect participle]-to
be.