A Comparative Study Of The Language Of Three Historical Sources Concerning History Of Dorben Oyirad

The objects of this research are three historical sources Dorbon Oyirdiyin tuukei tuuji kemen orosibo ("The Historical Narrative of the Four Oirats"), Dorbon Oyirid-yin namtar orosiboi ("The History of the Four Oirats"), Dorben Oyirad-un namtar teuke ene bolai ("The History of the Four Oirats"). These texts have been appreciated by historians due to their content and informational value. They have particularly mentioned that these texts contained numerous data unknown from other sources. They have repeatedly remarked a need to study the differences and to determine the relations between these three sources. That is why I have tried to determine the mutual differences between the three sources, as well as to study the palaeographical and linguistic features appeared in the texts and in the result to define the specifics of the Clear Script(todu usiig) and the Mongolian script (qudum bicig) of the period concerned. I have marked the three texts by letters A, B, C, worked out parallel transliterations and written a database. In this way I have studied the textual similarities and differences, omitted words and sentences and graphical variants. Consequently I have created a comparative statistical study concerning the orthography, grammar and lexicography. I have concluded that the manuscript A (Dorbon Oyirdiyin tuukei tuuji kemen orosibo) was not a primary original, but a manuscript copied from two older sources. Manuscript B and C were both self-standing texts without any mutual links.The present thesis is divided into six parts:general introduction, first chapter, second chapter, parallel database, index of positional variants and general word index.The introduction describes reasons for the study of this topic, research goals, the novelty of the research, the state of previous studies, research methods, and the historical context of the texts, their authorship, dating and content.The first chapter presents the general situation of the texts, information where the manuscripts are kept, and a palaeographical outline. Further this chapter studies the similarities and particularities of the three manuscripts, the omitted words and sentences and graphical variants.The second chapter consists of linguistic and graphical study of the three manuscripts, the palaeographic specifics and comparison, statistic of characters, statistic of syllables, grammatical specifics of the three manuscripts, a comparison of the forms expressing plurality, a comparison of the case forms, a comparison of the reflexive forms, a comparison of the time expressing verbal forms, a comparison of the personal forms of verbs, a comparison of the forms of converbs, a comparison of the forms of final verbs, a comparison of the mode forms and a general category of particles. I have also done a study of100words the most frequently occurring in the three texts, an annotated statistical index of the words with and without suffixes and further lexical research.The parallel database represents a special database of the three texts (A, B, C) in a Latin transliteration synoptically arranged into three columns, where all the words are divided into the word roots and suffixes. Instead of the omitted words a special sign is used.The index of positional varieties is a comparative table of different words occurring on the same place in the sentences contained in the database.The general word index is formed by a table which indicates the general frequency of the words in the database and the positional varieties.