HAYATA, Teruhiro. 2012. A historical overview of the alternation of n ～ ø  in Manchu. Altai hakpo 22. 93-110. The Altaic Society of Korea.

Two types of /n ～ ø/ alternations have been considered here. One is an alternation between /-i/ and /ni/ of the genitive-instrumental case-marker after the /ng/ sound, and the other is an alternation between /emu/ and /nemu/ of the numeral “one”. The former /-i/ ～ /ni/ alternation was not active during the Nurhaci era (～ 1626), more than 80% of genitive-instrumental case-marker tokens being of the shape /-i/ irrespective of the preceding sound, as in /ing -i/ “of the camp”. At the beginning of the Hongtaiji era Tian-cong 1 (1627), five years before the Manchu orthography was reformed, the percentage of /ni/ genitive-instrumental after /ng/ rises suddenly, as in /ing ni/ “of the camp” rather than /ing -i/. Eventually this form becomes a standard form in the Peking era (1644 ～). The latter alternation between /emu/ and /nemu/ is interpreted as follows. The basic form /emu/ “one” changes to /nemu/ after double figures ending in /n/, e.g., /juwan/ “10” + /emu/ “1” → /juwan nemu/ “11”. This type of /emu/ ～ /nemu/ alternation has been well preserved from the earliest records of the Manchu script of the Nurhaci era until Chong-de 4 (1639) of the Hongtaiji era, seven years after the Manchu orthography was reformed, and after that almost all records show exclusively /emu/, e.g., “11” is /juwan emu/ rather than /juwan nemu/. These two changes reflected in the Manchu script do not correspond with the time of the Manchu orthographic reforms (1632). Evidently, some unknown political influence must be taken into consideration.

Keywords: alternation of n～ø, genitive-instrumental case-marker, numeral “one”, Manchu