  The generalized massive Thirring model (GMT) with three fermion species is
bosonized in the context of the functional integral and operator formulations
and shown to be equivalent to a generalized sine-Gordon model (GSG) with three
interacting soliton species. The generalized Mandelstam soliton operators are
constructed and the fermion-boson mapping is established through a set of
generalized bosonization rules in a quotient positive definite Hilbert space of
states. Each fermion species is mapped to its corresponding soliton in the
spirit of particle/soliton duality of Abelian bosonization. In the
semi-classical limit one recovers the so-called SU(3) affine Toda model coupled
to matter fields (ATM) from which the classical GSG and GMT models were
recently derived in the literature. The intermediate ATM like effective action
possesses some spinors resembling the higher grading fields of the ATM theory
which have non-zero chirality. These fields are shown to disappear from the
physical spectrum, thus providing a bag model like confinement mechanism and
leading to the appearance of the massive fermions (solitons). The ordinary
MT/SG duality turns out to be related to each SU(2) sub-group. The higher rank
Lie algebra extension is also discussed.
