MWW 19: Үгүй

Cyrillic	үгүй
Transcription	ügüi
IPA	[ʉɣwi] [ʉɣʉ:] [kw::::]?
Layman’s Pronunciation	oo-GWEE oo-GOO KKKKK
Translation	no; not; without
In Genghis Khan’s time it was ügei.

Since I already mentioned it in the post about тийм, let’s talk about үгүй. Үгүй is very interesting because in classical Mongolian, it appears to have a been a verb meaning “to have not” or “there is not.” Over the course of the next 800 years it has largely disappeared in that function but at the same time has evolved into a verb suffix, an interjection, a noun, a case ending, and a derivational suffix for adjectives.

The verb suffix

As a verb, үгүй took nouns as its arguments, not other verbs. So how did it get attached to other verbs? There’s a loophole here: verbal nouns. At some point, Mongolians began using gerunds a lot with this verb, eventually crowding out the old negative constructions, which apparently involved a preverbal particle үл. Үгүй’s invasion was highly successful, because now it’s the normal way of forming a negative statement. I’ve never heard anyone speaking normally say үл. In time, it was shortened simply to -гүй and joined to the preceding word.

One of the verbs that did this was the verb “to be / to have,” байх. Even though үгүй by itself had already been a negative existential verb, it contracted with байх to produce the new negative existential form байхгүй, “there is not, have not.” I usually hear this, instead of үгүй by itself.

The case suffix

Үгүй became a case suffix in pretty much the same way it became a verb suffix. It contracted with the noun in front of it as -гүй. In this way it acquired the meaning “without (NOUN),” and became a privative case suffix. It complements the comitative case, -тай, “with.” (The privative case is not usually mentioned in books about Mongolian, but believe me, it’s every bit like -тай, which everyone considers a grammatical case.)

Eventually a sentence like

Хонь үгүй.

sheep be-not

“There are no sheep.”

turned into

Хоньгүй байна. (alternating with Хонь байхгүй!)

sheep.without be

“It is without sheep.”

Notice that now байна has appeared. This is the non-past form of the verb “to be.” Mongolian usually omits the verb “to be,” allowing its meaning to be inferred from context. Presumably it worked the other way here. Once -гүй became reinterpreted as a case-suffix, Mongolians began to feel that there was a missing predicate and inserted “to be” where it never used to be.

The noun

As a noun it means “absence.”

Миний үгүйд олон хүн манайд очсон.

Many people came to my home in my absence.

The derivational suffix

From a case suffix -гүй has nearly become a derivational suffix. Here it is following the lead of the comitative case -тай. There are countless words ending in these suffixes which normally function as adjectives. Words ending in -тай can be compared to English adjectives ending in “-y,” “-ed,” or especially, “-ful.” Words ending in -гүй can be compared to English adjectives ending in “-less.”

The interjection

Үгүй is also the equivalent of English "no." Note that үгүй is not used to answer “no” when the question is one of identity. There is a negative copula, биш, which is used to answer “no” on such occasions.

Тэр Энх Тайваны Корпусын сайн дурын ажилтан уу?

Is he a Peace Corps volunteer?

Биш.

No.

(Also, remember from the previous word of the week that "no" and "yes" mean different things when answering questions containing a negative.) 

More expressions:

үгүй байх        “not be”            to be absent

үгүй болох      “not become”   to die

үгүй хийх       “not make”       to use up, destroy

үгүйсгэх          to deny, contradict

Гахай жил Их Хаан үгүй болов.

In the year of the pig, the Great Khaan deceased.

Interesting pronunciation notes

Mongolian has vowel harmony, which means that most suffixes (there are no prefixes) have either 2 to 4 alternative forms. The suffix гүй is one of the apparently exceptions. It is written invariably as гүй regardless of which vowel-harmony class it is attached to. Normally, we would expect it to become гуй if attached to words containing the vowels а /a/, о /ɔ/ or у /ʊ/. However, in informal speech, I’ve noticed, it does get changed. Language change in action!

Furthermore, here’s a funny note about how Mongolians pronounce the word “no.” Frequently it is not fully sounded out as [ʉɣwi]. Instead, it becomes more like an expressive noise than an actual word, sort of like the clicking sound English speakers make in disapproval. I'd transcribe it as [kxxxw] or something, but that's probably a bad way to do it. It's sort of like the kind of noise you make to imitate radio or TV static. I really need to get some sound samples up here somehow.