Assertion, presumption and presupposition An account of the erstwhile nominalizer YUM in Khalkha Mongolian Benjamin Brosig, 1,2 Foong Ha Yap 1,3 and Kathleen Ahrens 1 1 Hong Kong Polytechnic University | 2 Academia Sinica | 3 Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen In this paper, we analyze the clitic YUM (< ‘thing’) in Khalkha Mongolian which, in diferent syntactic contexts, reinforces assertiveness or expresses diferent shades of presumption or presupposition. The former holds for declaratives where the presence of YUM conveys the speaker’s strong subjective commitment. In question clauses, YUM is used to indicate the speaker’s subjective and ofen strong guess, sometimes to the point that the speaker presupposes that the proposition actually obtains. In subordinate clauses, YUM may fulfll the same function or serve as a structurally necessary nominalizer for adjectival predicates without introducing any semantic opposition. In declaratives marked as immediately perceived, YUM conveys inference via assumptive reasoning. We thus analyze YUM as a marker of subjective speaker conviction that within the Khalkha Mongolian declarative system is opposed to both simple factuality and overt evidential marking. Keywords: assertion, presumption, presupposition, inference, evidentiality In memory of John C. Street (1930–2017) 1. Introduction In studies related to language philosophy and pragmatics, the question has been raised as to what it means to make and interpret an assertion. On the one hand, it has been assumed that the interpretation of assertions entails that the hearer attributes a belief to the speaker. Interpreting would thus be the reverse of assert- ing in some Gricean approaches (e.g. Bach & Harnish 1979:16), i.e. making a https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.18050.bro Studies in Language 43:4 (2019), pp. 896–940. issn 0378-4177 | e‑issn 1569-9978 © John Benjamins Publishing Company