Can, Must, Want, Like: Mongolian Without Modal Verbs

The English habit this page has to break

English modals are a tiny, tightly behaved set: can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would. They take no ending for person, they refuse to double up, and whatever follows them appears as a bare infinitive. I can swim, he can swim, they must leave, you may go. Because the pattern is so rigid, English speakers learn it as a slot: put the modal in the slot, hang the main verb behind it, done.

When you start Mongolian you reach for that slot and find nothing in it. There is no word that means can, no word that means must, and no word that means want in the sense you need. What exists instead is a set of separate constructions, each with its own shape, each attaching to the main verb in its own way. Two of them are verbs, болох and чадах. Three others — хэрэгтэй, ёстой, дуртай — are not verbs at all, but words ending in –тай / –той / –тэй, of the same family as завтай (having free time) and ажилтай (having work).

So the question to ask is never "what is Mongolian for must". It is "which of these am I actually saying": is somebody allowed, is somebody able, is something required, does somebody want, does somebody like. English hides that distinction under one word apiece. Mongolian makes you answer it before you can finish the sentence.

The map

The three meanings that belong to other pages are there because they have enough internal machinery to need their own treatment: wanting involves an accusative, needing involves a dative, and liking involves a dative too. This page holds the rest, and it holds the shape they all share.

The shape they share: the verb goes into –ж

In I can read, English leaves read untouched. Mongolian cannot: the content verb has to be put into a linking form, the converb in –ж (or –ч, by the same rule that governs the progressive), and the second word is then the one that carries the tense, the question particle and the negation. Only the last word in the chain is finite.

• Орж болох уу?
• enter-CONV be.possible-PART Q
• "May we come in?"

Compare авч болох уу? (may I take it?), уншиж чадах уу? (can you read?), орчуулж чадах уу? (can you translate?). The pattern is fixed: content verb in –ж, then болох or чадах, then whatever the sentence needs. The converb itself — why –ж and not –ч, and what else it does — belongs to the page on converbs; here it is only the joint.

Two consequences that trip people up. First, the question particle goes on the end of the whole thing, not on the content verb: never on орж, always after болох. Second, the negation goes there too, which is why "you may not" comes out as болохгүй and not as anything attached to the verb you are forbidding.

болох: is it allowed, is it possible

This is the construction for permission and for practical possibility. It is what you say at a door, in a museum, at a border post:

• Би зураг авч болох уу?
• I picture take-CONV be.possible-PART Q
• "May I take a photograph?"

Also Энд зураг авч болох уу? (Can one take photographs here?), Би энэ нүүдэлчний зургийг авч болох уу? (May I photograph this herder?), Би энэ номыг авч болох уу? (May I buy this book?), Би явж болох уу? (May I go?), Би маргааш цанаар гулгаж болох уу? (Can I go skiing tomorrow?), Та надад тусалж болох уу? (Could you help me?), and with a question word instead of a particle, Хаанаас талх авч болох вэ? (Where can one buy bread?). That switch from уу to вэ when a question word appears is the rule of the page on question particles, and it applies here like everywhere else.

The answers are short. Yes is the present-future of the same verb: Болно! or, more fully, Орж болно! (You may come in!). With an emphatic particle you will hear Болно оо!. No is Болохгүй:

• Та эндээс явж болохгүй!
• you here-ABL go-CONV be.possible-NEG
• "You can't leave this way!"

When the possibility is a standing one rather than a request about this moment, the habitual –даг appears on болох, as in явж болдог уу? (is it generally possible to go?). And болох accepts a chain of more than one content verb, each in –ж: Бид танай гэрт орж үзэж болох уу? (May we come into your ger and look round?).

чадах: am I able

This is capacity, skill, physical possibility residing in the person. The permission of the world has nothing to do with it:

• Та монгол бичиг уншиж чадах уу?
• you Mongol script read-CONV be.able-PART Q
• "Can you read the vertical script?"

Also Та энэ өгүүллэгийг толь бичиг хэрэглэхгүй орчуулж чадах уу? (Can you translate this article without using a dictionary?), Би монголоор бага сага өгүүлбэр орчуулж чадна. (I can translate short sentences into Mongolian.), Та далайн усанд сэлж чадах уу? (Can you swim in the sea?), Чи надад зам зааж чадах уу? (Can you show me the way?), Хэн миний нохойг олоод өгч чадах вэ? (Who could find my dog for me?). The negative is чадахгүй: Энэ жуулчид морь унаж чадахгүй. (These tourists can't ride.)

Here is the test, and it is worth running it in your head for a week. English can is asking two different questions and does not care which. Mongolian cares. If you stand at a door and say Орж чадах уу? you have asked whether you are physically capable of getting through the doorway, which is not what you meant. If you ask a translator Орчуулж болох уу? you have asked whether translating is permitted, which is also not what you meant. Permission and ability are two words in Mongolian and you choose at the moment of speaking.

A third verb covers a learned skill: мэдэх (to know), used the same way. Та вальс бүжиг хийж мэдэх үү? (Do you know how to waltz?) asks about knowing how, not about being able or being allowed.

ёстой: must

For obligation the dossier's source gives ёстой, and it behaves differently from болох and чадах in two ways. It is not a verb — like хэрэгтэй and дуртай, it is a word in –той — and the verb in front of it is not in –ж but in the plain –х form:

• Өнөө орой ажиллах ёстой.
• this evening work-PART obligatory
• "One has to work this evening."

Ёстой is the strong, categorical must: a rule, a law, a duty. For the ordinary practical kind of having to — I have to buy a visa, a nurse has to be patient — the source uses –х хэрэгтэй instead, and that construction, with its dative of the person, belongs to the page on wanting and needing. Keep the pair in mind as a contrast: ёстой is imposed from outside, хэрэгтэй is needed in practice.

For forbidding, Mongolian has two routes and they are not interchangeable. Болохгүй says it is not permitted, as a statement. Битгий goes in front of an imperative and tells one particular person not to do it; that is the imperatives page. What does not exist is a single negative modal doing both jobs, the way English must not does.

The other two lives of болох

Because болох is so common in the permission pattern, it is worth knowing that the same verb carries two further meanings. Beginners meet all three in the first weeks and assume they have met three different words.

To become, to come about. This covers times, seasons and events: Явах цаг болсон. (It is time to go.), Одоо чиний унтах цаг болсон. (Now it is time for you to sleep.), Одоо хэдэн цаг болж байна? (What time is it?), Орой болж байна. (It is getting late.), Энэ жил Монголд маш сайхан зун болсон. (Mongolia had a beautiful summer this year.), Цагаан сар хэзээ болох вэ? (When does Tsagaan Sar fall?), Гудамжинд юу болж байгааг хэлж өгөөч? (Tell me what's going on in the street.)

To acquire, to come to have. Here a comitative word in –тай stands in front of болох: Тэд олон дасгалын дэвтэртэй болсон. (They got themselves several exercise books.), Тэр энэ дуугаараа алдар хүндтэй болсон. (That song made him famous.), Миний аав наадамд түрүүлээд их нэртэй болсон. (My father became well known after winning at the Naadam.), Би Африк тивийн тухай мэдлэгтэй болмоор байна. (I would like to learn something about Africa.), Хүүхэд харахын тулд эхлээд чи туршлагатай болох хэрэгтэй. (To look after a child you first need to have experience.)

So you can read which болох you are looking at from the word in front of it. A verb in –ж means allowed. A noun in –тай means acquired. A word for a time, a season or an event means it is happening or becoming. Nothing else is needed, and nothing in the form itself tells you — the three senses conjugate identically.

What simply has no counterpart

English should, ought to, might and would like are not matched one to one anywhere in the material this dossier is built on. Mongolian covers that ground with ёстой and хэрэгтэй for the obligation end, with the want constructions for the inclination end, and very often with nothing at all, leaving the force of the sentence to the context and to the final particles. Do not look for a modal that is not there; look for the construction that says the thing you mean.