Negation in Mongolian

There is no Mongolian word you can learn as the translation of not, and there is nothing you can put in front of a Mongolian verb to negate it. Both of those facts take some getting used to. What you learn instead is a short decision: what exactly am I denying?

The decision table

Five negatives, then, with –гүй doing two different jobs. The single-word answer үгүй is the easiest of them and the least informative: it refuses the question and says nothing else, so it is almost always followed by a sentence that does the actual denying. How Mongolian answers yes and no, and why the answer often repeats the verb instead of using either word, is on the page on answering. The other four are the business of this page.

–гүй, the one that never changes

–гүй is a suffix, it means without or not, and it goes on the end of nouns, adjectives and verb forms alike. It has exactly one shape. Whatever the vowels of the word it joins, it stays –гүй:

• хүүхэд (child) → хүүхэдгүй (childless)
• нар (sun) → наргүй (sunless)
• будаа (rice) → будаагүй (without rice)
• билет (ticket) → билетгүй (without a ticket)
• ажил (work) → ажилгүй (without work, out of work)
• музей (museum) → музейгүй (with no museum)

Three of those words have nothing but back vowels in them, and the suffix still arrives with ү in it. That makes –гүй the most frequent counter-example to vowel harmony in the whole language, and its standing as an exception is set out on the page on the exceptions. Here all you need is the practical half: never adjust it.

It replaces the comitative, and does not stack on it

The ending –тай / –той / –тэй means with, and a great deal of Mongolian is built on it. Its opposite is formed by taking it off and putting –гүй in its place:

The two endings are alternatives, so they never appear on the same word. Sentences built this way are everywhere in the lessons: Та сүүгүй кофе уумаар байна. ("You want coffee without milk."), Өнөөдөр наргүй өдөр байна, гэхдээ хүйтэн биш байна. ("Today is a sunless day, but it is not cold."), Тэр мууранд дургүй. ("He does not like cats."). What дуртай and хэрэгтэй mean as constructions, and which case they demand around them, belongs to liking and to wanting and needing.

биш against –гүй: identity against absence

These two are not interchangeable and the difference is worth one minute of attention.

• биш denies that the subject is something. It is a separate word, it comes after the noun or adjective it denies, and it is the negative of a sentence that had no verb in the first place: Би багш биш. ("I am not a teacher."), Энэ чиний аав биш. ("This is not your father."), Би Канад хүн биш. ("I am not Canadian."), Энэ мах сайн биш. ("This meat is not good.")
• –гүй denies that something is present, possessed or applicable. Би завгүй is not "I am not free time"; it is "I have no free time".

So Би оюутан биш says you are not a student, and Би завгүй says you do not have any spare time. One is about what you are, the other about what you have.

байхгүй: there is not

байхгүй is the negative of байна in its existential and locative uses, and it is the word you need when English says there is no, there are no, or is not here:

• Бууз байхгүй. (There are no buuz.)
• Энэ дэлгүүрт мах байхгүй. (There is no meat in this shop.)
• Франц хэлний ном байхгүй. (There is no French book.)
• Энд шуудан байхгүй. (There is no post office here.)
• Үгүй, түүний аав ээж энд байхгүй. (No, his parents are not here.)

Note the fourth and fifth: the same word covers "there is no post office" and "they are not here", because for Mongolian both are statements about something not being in a place. It also answers an existence question all by itself — Мах байна уу? ("Is there meat?") is answered Байхгүй. And it takes a question particle of its own: Бууз байхгүй юу? ("Are there no buuz?"), Морь байхгүй юу? ("Is there no horse?"). байхгүй as one of the forms of the verb байна, alongside байсан and байгаа, is treated on the page on "to be" and "to have".

Negating a verb: once for each form

Here is the part with no English parallel. You cannot negate a Mongolian verb in general; you negate a particular form of it, and the negative attaches differently depending on which form you started from. Learn the table as a set of habits rather than as one rule.

The habitual

–даг says that something happens as a rule, and its negative says that it does not:

• Би энд ажилладаггүй. (I do not work here.)
• Би Монгол улсад ажилладаггүй. (I do not work in Mongolia.)
• Гадаад оюутан монголоор ярьдаггүй. (The foreign student does not speak Mongolian.)
• Манай ерөнхийлөгч англиар сайн ярьдаггүй. (Our president does not speak English well.)

This is the form that translates most English simple presents, so an English speaker needs it constantly. I do not smoke, she does not eat meat, they do not live here are all –даггүй.

The future and the refusal

The present-future –на cannot take –гүй directly. You go back to the –х form of the verb and negate that:

• Тэр Улаанбаатарт маргааш очихгүй. (He is not going to Ulaanbaatar tomorrow.)
• Би маргааш усан санд очихгүй. (I am not going to the swimming pool tomorrow.)
• Энэ оюутан монгол хэлний хичээлээ арван цагт эхлэхгүй. (This student will not start her Mongolian lesson at ten.)

The same form is the ordinary way to refuse something, and it works as a complete answer: Цай уух уу? — Уухгүй! ("Tea?" — "No thanks."), Таны жолооч англи хэл мэдэх үү? — Мэдэхгүй. ("Does your driver know English?" — "He does not."), Түүний ах энд сууж байна уу? — Энд суухгүй! ("Is his brother staying here?" — "He is not staying here!")

The action in progress, which has two negatives

–ж байна is the form for something going on now, and it is negated in two different ways that a beginner meets side by side. The full form puts –хгүй on the verb and keeps байна:

• Та ойлгож байна уу? — Би ойлгохгүй байна. (Do you understand? — I do not understand.)

The short answer uses –аагүй instead, the same ending that negates the past:

• Чи энэ номыг уншиж байна уу? — Уншаагүй. (Are you reading this book? — I am not.)
• Тэр эрэгтэй францаар ярьж байна уу? — Яриагүй. (Is that man speaking French? — He is not.)

Both are correct and both are current. What –ж байна expresses in the first place is on the page on the present.

The past, which also has two

Starting from –сан, you can either swap the ending for –аагүй or keep –сан and glue –гүй behind it. The first vowel of –аагүй follows the vowels of the stem, while –гүй itself, as always, does not move:

• Нар гарсан уу? — Нар гараагүй. (Has the sun risen? — It has not.)
• Та энэ зургийг үзсэн үү? — Үзээгүй! (Have you seen this picture? — I have not!)
• Та миний морийг харсан уу? — Харсангүй! (Have you seen my horse? — I have not!)

The two are not quite equivalent. The method notes that the –сангүй version carries a shade of disappointment or vexation — the thing was expected and did not happen. Тэр Канадаас ирээгүй states a fact; Тэр Канадаас ирсэнгүй states it with a sigh. Which past you were negating in the first place is a question for the page on the past.

The order you do not want given

An imperative is negated by a separate word, битгий, placed in front of the verb, and the verb itself does not change at all:

• Битгий яваарай. (NEG go-IMP — Don't go.)
• Та битгий мартаарай! (Don't forget!)
• Битгий аваарай! (Don't take it!)
• Та Москва хотод битгий удаан байгаарай! (Don't stay long in Moscow!)
• Болохгүй бол битгий яв. (If it is not possible, don't go.)

This is the one negative in the language that sits before the word it negates, which is why English speakers remember it easily and then overuse it. It is for orders and warnings only. Six degrees of politeness are available in the Mongolian imperative, and битгий interacts with all of them; that is the subject of the page on imperatives.

The negative is the last thing you hear

Because the suffix goes on after the tense, and because the verb closes the sentence, the information that a Mongolian sentence is negative arrives at the very end of it. Compare:

• Бид маргааш ажиллана. (We are working tomorrow.)
• Бид маргааш ажиллахгүй. (We are not working tomorrow.)

Two of the three words are identical, and the third differs only in what is fastened to its stem. English does the reverse and puts its not early, which is why a learner listening to Mongolian tends to commit to a reading of the sentence before the sentence has told him whether it is true. The habit to build is simple: do not decide anything until the final syllable. Where exactly the negative sits among the other endings on a long verb is shown on the page on suffix order.

A negative question is an offer

Mongolian frequently asks for something by negating it, and this is a genuine cultural trap rather than a grammatical curiosity:

• Та цай уухгүй юу? (Won't you have some tea?)
• Та мах иддэггүй юү? (Don't you eat meat?)
• Танай эхнэр хоол хийхгүй юм уу? (Isn't your wife going to cook?)
• Чи өдрийн тэмдэглэл бичдэггүй юм уу? (Don't you keep a diary?)

Structurally, these questions are just a negated verb plus a final particle — уу, юу, юү or the two-word юм уу. The choice between those particles follows its own rules, which are on the page on question particles. Without the particle the same words are a flat refusal: Уухгүй. With it, they are hospitality.

Two things –гүй does that are not negation at all

The same suffix builds vocabulary. холгүй means not far and functions as an ordinary adjective, as in Эндээс холгүй нэг жижиг цайны газар байдаг уу? ("Is there a small tea house not far from here?"). Words of that kind are dealt with as derivation on the page on building new words, because by the time –гүй has become part of a dictionary word it is no longer a grammatical choice you make sentence by sentence. And on a verb of intention, –гүй negates the wanting rather than the action: Би архи уумааргүй байна is "I don't want to drink vodka", not "I won't drink it" — a distinction that belongs to wanting and needing.