On Tuvan function word sug

Abstract

In the following article, we analyze the meanings and functions of the polysemantic function word sug in the Tuvan language. It is commonly used to denote the collective meaning, or group multitude: ‘his family’, ‘his friends’, ‘his home’. Among the Siberian Turkic languages, functional analogues of this meaning of the word sug are found in the Yakut language, which has a number of specific traits in common with the Tuvan language. In its collective meaning, the particle sug attracts some grammatical markers of the nouns (case affixes, the possessive form with =nyy with the affirmative particle =dyr) which it is combined. The function word sug is also used as an expressive-distinguishing par-ticle: combined with the dep marker and the speech verb de= ‘to speak’, ‘to say’, it is used for emotional and expressive direct speech.