Mongolian Postpositions, and the Case Each One Takes

Two inversions at the same time

In about the book, English does two things. It places the relational word first, and it asks nothing of the noun that follows: book arrives in the same shape it has in a dictionary. Mongolian reverses both decisions. The relational word goes last, and the noun in front of it is normally put into the genitive.

номын тухай (about the book)

That pair is built here from two words you already have, ном and тухай, to make the shape visible; the method's own phrase of the same shape is монгол бөхийн тухай (about Mongolian wrestling), where бөх carries the genitive for exactly the same reason.

Both changes land in the same two words, which is why beginners who have learned the vocabulary still produce *тухай ном for months. There is no half-way version: you cannot keep the English order and add the ending, and you cannot put the word behind and leave the noun bare. Learning a postposition therefore means learning three things at once — what it means, that it stands behind, and which ending it demands in front of it. That third piece of information is the one every vocabulary list leaves out, and it is the subject of this page.

The word for this class of words is postposition, and nothing in Mongolian is ever a preposition. A postposition is a separate word, written with a space in front of it, which is what distinguishes it from a case suffix glued to the noun.

Reading one in slow motion

Here is one of the method's sentences with the structure laid out:

Элчин сайд ерөнхийлөгчийн оронд ирсэн.

ambassador president-GEN instead-of come-PAST

"The ambassador came in place of the president."

Work from the end, as always. ирсэн closes the sentence and is the verb. оронд in front of it is a free word, not a suffix, so it belongs to whatever precedes it. And ерөнхийлөгчийн carries the genitive, which is the signal that it is the complement of оронд and not the subject or the object of the verb. The genitive here is doing no possessive work at all — the president does not own anything in this sentence; it is simply what оронд requires. How the genitive ending is chosen for a given noun is a separate question with its own page, the Mongolian genitive.

The list, sorted by what each one demands

Most postpositions take the genitive, and if you remember nothing else, defaulting to the genitive will be right more often than not. But a handful take the ablative, one takes the comitative, and two take nothing at all. Guessing wrong is audible.

These take the genitive

One more belongs to the same group but will not sit still in a column. дунд (in the middle of, among) appears both ways in the method, with the genitive and with nothing at all: далайн дунд and далай дунд (in the middle of the sea) are both given. It is the one entry on this page where you are free either way.

Two of the rows need a footnote. With дээр and доор you will meet a short form rather than a full genitive on words that end in a vowel: the method's own sentence is Миний бүх ном гал тогооны ширээн дээр байна (all my books are on the kitchen table), where ширээ appears as ширээн and not as ширээний. Treat ширээн дээр as a unit and do not try to repair it. And in Эхийнхээ доор хоёр хурга байна (there are two lambs under the ewe), the genitive carries a further ending that marks the ewe as belonging to the lambs themselves; that extra piece belongs to the reflexive possessive.

These take the ablative

Notice how well this group fits its case. The ablative is the from case, and every one of these four is a kind of starting point: from that morning onward, from that cause, measured out from that standard. The pairing is not arbitrary, and if you have read the ablative you can almost predict the list. Тэр судлаач өглөөнөөс хойш хүлээсэн (that researcher had been waiting since the morning) is the pattern to memorise.

One takes the comitative

хамт (together with) is followed by nothing — it is the word in front of it that must carry –тай, –той or –тэй. So with me as a companion is надтай хамт, where надтай is already a complete word meaning with me and хамт adds the sense of togetherness on top. English merges the two ideas into one with, which is why learners drop one half or the other. The ending itself is on the comitative.

Two take nothing at all

хүртэл (as far as, until) and ёсоор (according to) follow the bare noun:

• Бид Сүхбаатарын талбай хүртэл алхана. (we will walk as far as Sükhbaatar Square) — the genitive on Сүхбаатарын belongs to талбай, and талбай itself stands bare in front of хүртэл;
• дараагийн хот хүртэл (as far as the next town);
• Хууль ёсоор, чамд нэг виз хэрэгтэй. (according to the law, you need a visa)

That first example is worth staring at, because it contains both situations at once. A genitive appears, and it is not there for the postposition.

Some of them sit behind a verb

A postposition does not have to follow a noun. Two of them follow a verb form instead, and they are how Mongolian expresses what English says with in order to and as soon as.

The first, тулд, wants the verb in its –х form with a genitive ending added to it, exactly as though the verb were a noun:

• явахын тулд (in order to go);
• Гол харахын тулд (in order to see the river).

Та Орос руу явахын тулд виза авах хэрэгтэй юү?

you Russia to go-PART-GEN in-order-to visa take need Q

"Do you need a visa in order to go to Russia?"

The second, даруй (as soon as), follows a completed participle with no ending: Сайд ярьсан даруй хүмүүс цугларсан (as soon as the minister spoke, the people gathered). The participle forms themselves are on Mongolian participles, and the larger business of building a clause out of a verb form is on complex sentences. What matters here is that the construction is the same shape as номын тухай: something in front, inflected, and the little word behind it.

Where the phrase goes in the sentence

A postpositional phrase behaves like any other non-subject element, which means it goes somewhere between the subject and the verb and never after the verb. Within that span it can move, and time phrases in particular have two comfortable positions. They commonly sit immediately after the subject:

• Би өдрийн турш зураг авсан. (I took photographs all day long)
• Би Парисын их сургуульд нэг жилийн турш сурсан. (I studied at the university of Paris for a year)
• Бид өдөр бүр хамт таван цагийн турш ажилладаг. (we work together five hours every day)

Or they open the sentence, which gives them a little more weight: Хоёр жилийн өмнө бид хоёр гэрлэсэн (two years ago the two of us married). Both are ordinary. What is not available is the English habit of hanging the phrase on the end after the verb, because in Mongolian the verb closes the sentence; the general shape of the sentence is on Mongolian word order, and the vocabulary of calendars and clocks is on time expressions.

One more observation from the method, which is reassuring rather than troublesome: турш is sometimes left out when the time span is obvious, so Би таван жил тэнд амьдарсан (I lived there five years) stands beside Би таван жилийн турш тэнд амьдарсан. Both are said. The bare version is a duration expressed by the noun alone, not a postposition with a missing ending.

Three things that look like postpositions and are not

The direction words. руу and рүү (towards) behave like separate words and are sometimes counted as postpositions, but the question of what they really are, and how they divide the work with two of the cases, deserves its own treatment on руу and рүү.

Case endings. –тай, –аас and –аар are glued to the noun with no space and change their vowel to match it. A postposition does neither. If you can put a space in front of it and its vowels stay put, it is a postposition; хамт is one, –тай is not.

The same word used as an adverb. дараа is a postposition in хичээлийн дараа, but in Би тантай дараа уулзъя (let me meet you later) it has nothing in front of it that it governs and simply means later. The test is whether there is a genitive sitting in front of it. Similarly, a demonstrative is not put into the genitive before тухай: the method writes Би энэ тухай тантай аяар яръя (I will speak with you about this later), with энэ unchanged. The demonstratives have their own page, энэ and тэр.

The reflex worth building

When you are reading and you hit one of these words, look left, not right. The information you need is already behind you: the inflected noun tells you where the phrase began, and the postposition tells you what the phrase does. When you are producing Mongolian, run the three questions in order — what does it mean, where does it go, what does it demand — and the third question is the one you will get wrong, so answer it first. Чиний ачаар би энэ хийдийг оллоо (thanks to you I found this monastery): genitive, then the postposition, then on with the sentence.