The Mongolian Accusative: Marking the Direct Object

An ending that comes and goes

English marks the direct object by putting it after the verb and never does anything else about it. Mongolian marks it with an ending on the noun — and then only part of the time. These two sentences are both correct, both ordinary, and differ by three letters:

Би энэ номыг уншсан.

I this book-ACC read-PAST

"I read this book."

Би ном уншсан.

I book read-PAST

"I read a book."

In the first, the book is a particular book and carries –ыг. In the second, it is just reading matter and carries nothing. Nothing else in either sentence moves. That is the whole difficulty of this case, and it is less a rule to apply than a habit to acquire: you learn to hear whether the object has been pinned down.

The three endings

Three forms, and unlike the ablative or the instrumental this case does not split four ways. It distinguishes only ы from ий, so there is no separate form for a word in о and none for a word in ө.

Four words from that list repay a second look. салхи (wind) ends in и and the и simply merges into the ending: салхийг, not салхиийг. багш (teacher) has the vowel а and ought by the table to give багшыг, but the form is багшийг, exactly as its genitive is багшийн; learn the word with its ending attached. чоно (wolf) loses its final short vowel instead of taking a bare –г, giving чоныг. And сан (treasury, fund) takes –г after a consonant — санг — which is the form you meet inside номын сангаас (from the library).

Words that drop a short vowel before an ending do it here too: ажил (work) gives ажлыг, зураг (picture) gives зургийг, малчин (herder) gives малчныг, морь (horse) gives морийг. Note that зураг has only back vowels and still takes –ийг; the audio course gives the form without a rule for it, so take it as given. If you want the whole selection procedure set out mechanically, for this case and the six others at once, that is the page Choosing the Right Case Ending.

Definite, indefinite, and why English is no help

The rule the course states is short: an indefinite word does not take the case ending. The trouble is that English speakers reach for a and the to decide what counts as definite, and that test does not work. Би ном уншсан can be rendered "I read a book" or "I read the book" according to context; the Mongolian is the same either way. What triggers the ending is not an article in the translation but whether the object has been identified in the sentence itself — by энэ (this), by a possessive, or by being a named individual.

A possessive does the identifying just as well as энэ. In the sentence Би танай хотыг мэдэхгүй. (I do not know your city), the word хот carries the ending only because танай (your) has narrowed it to one city. Standing alone, хот would have stayed bare. The same pair turns up in a single lesson of the course: Би айраг чамтай удахгүй уумаар байна. (I want to drink airag with you soon) leaves айраг unmarked, because it is airag in general, while Би энэ юмыг ааваас авмаар байна. (I want to get this thing from my father) marks юм, because энэ has pointed at it.

One sentence in the course cuts against its own rule, and it is worth knowing about rather than being surprised by: Би нэг номыг дэлгүүрээс авсан. (I bought a book at the shop) keeps the ending on ном even though нэг means "one, a" and ought to make the book indefinite. Treat the rule as a strong tendency that tells you what to do when you are composing a sentence, not as a law that lets you predict every sentence you will hear.

Reading a bare object

The practical risk of an optional ending is not writing but reading. In Би ном уншсан. both би and ном are bare, and nothing on either word says which is the reader. Three things settle it. The subject comes first. The verb closes the sentence, so the bare noun sitting immediately before it is almost always the object. And the meaning of the verb usually rules out the alternative: books do not read people.

This is why a sentence with no ending in it anywhere is still unambiguous, and why the nominative page spends its time on exactly this sorting job — telling a true nominative from an accusative whose ending has been left off. Both pages are looking at the same bare noun from opposite sides.

The pronouns, which are irregular

A pronoun points at somebody, so a pronoun used as an object is always identified and always takes the ending. The forms are not predictable from the dictionary shape and have to be learned:

Two observations. би and чи change stem completely — намайг and чамайг contain nothing of their dictionary forms. And таныг is one letter away from the possessive таны (your), which is a genuine trap in listening: the г is the difference between "your" and "you" as an object. In та нарыг only the second word takes the ending, because та нар behaves as a two-word group.

• Тэр намайг өчигдөр харсан. (He saw me yesterday.)
• Би чамайг ойлгож байна. (I understand you.)
• Тэр биднийг сайн ойлгож байна! (He understands us well!)
• Тэд түүнийг өөрөө харсан. (They saw him themselves.)
• Цагдаа тэр хүнийг бариарай! (Officer, arrest that person!)

түүнийг, in the fourth of those, is the accusative of тэр taken on its own as "him, her" — a form with nothing of тэр left visible in it, which is why it has to be learned rather than worked out. Beside it the course also uses the fuller тэр хүн (that person), where the ending simply falls on хүн in the ordinary way; both are current, and the two-word version is the easier one to catch by ear. The whole set of pronouns across the seven cases, and the two parallel series of бид, belong to the page Mongolian Personal Pronouns and Possessives.

Names take the ending too

A personal name is the most identified kind of object there is, so it is marked:

Би Доржийг ирснийг мэдээгүй.

I Dorj-ACC come-PAST-ACC know-NEG

"I did not know Dorj had arrived."

Two endings in one short sentence, and both are this case — one on the man, one on the verb. The other place a beginner meets a marked name is the sentence used for introductions, Миний нэрийг Сарангэрэл гэдэг. (My name is Sarangerel), where гэдэг means roughly "is called" and takes what is being named as its object. Read word for word it says "Sarangerel calls my name", which is odd in English and perfectly regular here.

When a verb carries the ending

An object does not have to be a thing. It can be a whole action, and then the verb of that action takes the ending. Two constructions use this, and both are everyday.

The first says what somebody wants. The wanted verb goes into its –х form, takes this ending, and хүсэж байна follows:

• Би хөдөө наадам үзэхийг хүсэж байна. (I want to see the Naadam in the countryside.)
• Энэ тэмээчин Улаанбаатар хотод ажиллахыг хүсэж байна. (This camel herder wants to work in Ulaanbaatar.)
• Тэр чамаас хоёр хурга худалдаж авахыг хүсэж байна. (He wants to buy two lambs from you.)

The second is a whole clause serving as the object of a verb such as мэдэх (to know) or хэлэх (to tell). What that construction is, and how a Mongolian sentence is assembled out of two clauses without a word for "that", is the business of the page Complex Sentences in Mongolian. What belongs here is narrower: the ending lands on the clause's own verb, and this is what it looks like when it does.

Тэр цас орсныг мэдээгүй.

he snow fall-PAST-ACC know-NEG

"He did not know it had snowed."

Three points about its shape. The ending always comes after another verb suffix, never on a bare stem: орсон first, then the ending. A short vowel in that suffix usually drops, so ирсэн gives ирснийг and явдаг gives явдгийг — though the course also writes очдогыг with the vowel kept, and gives no rule, so these are forms to recognise rather than to build. And the choice between –ыг and –ийг here follows no pattern you can rely on: болохыг and захиалсныг against ирснийг and байдгийг.

• Ямар автобус онгоцны буудлаас хот руу явдгийг хэлж өгнө үү? (Could you tell me which bus goes from the airport into town?)
• Та надад хөдөө нэг морь ямар үнэтэй байдгийг хэлнэ үү? (Could you tell me what a horse is worth in the countryside?)
• Ямар автомашинаар тийшээ явж болохыг зааж өгнө үү? (Could you show me what sort of vehicle one can get there in?)

In all three the marked verb is the last word before the final verb, and that is the practical way to find the ending when you are reading: look for a verb suffix with –ыг or –ийг welded onto it. The forms хүсэж байна, болох and чадах belong to Can, Must, Want, Like.

One ending for a whole group

When several words make a single phrase, only the last one is marked. танай хотыг has the ending on хот and nothing on танай. A list behaves the same way:

Бид малаас сүү, арьс, ноос, ноолуур, махыг нь хэрэглэдэг.

we livestock-ABL milk hide wool cashmere meat-ACC its use-HAB

"We use the milk, hides, wool, cashmere and meat of the livestock."

Five nouns in a row and one ending, on мах at the end of the list. One more layer can follow the ending, a reflexive syllable that marks the object as the speaker's own: Би гэргийгээ хүлээж байна. (I am waiting for my wife) and Тэр найзыгаа угтахыг хүсэж байна. (He wants to go and meet his friend). That extra piece is explained on the page The Reflexive Possessive.

Verbs that want a different case

The last thing to know is that an English direct object is not always a Mongolian one. уулзах (to meet) never takes an object in this case at all; the person met goes into the comitative. авах (to take, to get, to buy) does take one — in Би нэг номыг дэлгүүрээс авсан. (I bought a book at the shop) it is ном that is marked — but it also demands the ablative for the place the thing came out of. Which verb calls for which case is sorted out on The Mongolian Ablative and The Mongolian Comitative. The consequence for this page is worth stating plainly, because it is the second reason a noun can turn up bare: the ending may be missing because the object is indefinite, or because the verb never wanted this case in the first place.