< Reconstruction:Proto-Mongolic
Reconstruction:Proto-Mongolic/ci
Proto-Mongolic
Reconstruction
Nugteren derives earlier *cï by comparison with other second-person pronouns, but all descendants clearly derive from *ci and some authorities even reject *ï as a separate phoneme.
Internal reconstruction also allows reconstructing earlier *tï/*ti.
Etymology
Somewhat similar to Proto-Turkic *sen and Proto-Tungusic *si. Compare Turkish sen, Evenki си (si).
Whether this similarity is due to inheritance, borrowing or coincidence is a highly contentious question among specialists in these languages which is of crucial significance for the Altaic debate.
Adjective
*ci
- you (personal pronoun)
Descendants
- Middle Mongolian:
- Arabic: جي (či) (Muqaddimat)
- Phags-Pa: ꡅꡞ
- Uighur: ᠴᠢ (či)
- Mongolian:
- Classical: ᠴᠢ (či)
- Khalkha: чи (či)
- Ordos: /t͡ʃʰi/
- Buryat: ши (ši)
- Khamnigan Mongol: či
- Kalmyk: чи (çi)
- Daur: shii
- Eastern Yugur: ci
- Monguor:
- Mangghuer: qi
- Mongghul: qi
- Bonan: ci
- Kangjia: ci
- Dongxiang: chi
- Mogholi: ci
Further reading
- Nugteren, Hans (2011) Mongolic phonology and the Qinghai-Gansu languages (dissertation), Utrecht: LOT, page 300-301
- Janhunen, Juha (2013) Personal pronouns in Core Altaic. In Shared Grammaticalization With Special Focus on the Transeurasian Languages [Studies in Language Companion Series 132], Martine Robbeets & Hubert Cuyckens (eds)
- Schütz, Edmond (1974) Remarks On Altaic Personal Pronouns. In Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, Vol. 28, No. 1