Grammaticalization of Manchu affixes and the divergence in Tungusic languages

This study focused on the grammaticalization of Manchu affixes ‘-ji-’ and ‘-bu-’. The suffix ‘-ji-’ is explicit in its grammaticalization from the Manchu verb ‘ji- (come)’, which is a lexical element. This suffix shares some functions with ‘-me ji-’, a verb phrase composition. It has developed to a deictic marker to indicate the direction in which the event of the preceding stem verb takes place toward the deictic center without the actual movement of the figure. The development of the suffix ‘-ji-’ seems to have taken the case of the suffix ‘-nA’ as a model. The suffix ‘-nA’ shares the semantic function with the ‘-me gene-’ composition and seems to have redifferentiated from it. Verb-phrase construction such as ‘-me gene-’ is not used as a motion for purpose in other Tungusic languages. It is the suffix ‘-nA’ to indicate the movement of purpose. And it is not limited to the deictic direction. This difference is the result of a change in which the function of the verb phrase composition of ‘-me’ in Manchu is expanded. The original suffix ‘-nA’ avoids overlapping functions and acquires a new function as a deictic marker. The fact that ‘-nA’, which has been inherited from the ancestral language, partially lost the function of purpose movement and received a change limited to one part of the deictic direction, would have been a possible background for the creation of a new marker in charge of the other deictic area. The grammaticalization of the Manchu affix ‘-bu-’ is difficult to estimate internally in Manchu. The similarity and semantic relationship between the forms with the verb ‘bu-(to give)’ shows the possibility of grammaticalization in the perspective of language typology. There are no data to observe the process intimately. Unlike other Tungusic languages spreading in the east and north area, Manchu has not differentiated the causative with the passive marker. Even in the Tungusic languages where the passive marker is distinct from the causative, the causative affix can also be interpreted as passive. On the other hand, passive markers tend to be limited to resultative or potential meanings and appear more frequently in non-personal phrases. Morphology of the causative suffix has the form with an intensifier attached to the passive form.