Kalaallisut language
Encyclopedia
Greenlandic is an Eskimo–Aleut language spoken by about 57,000 people in Greenland
. It is closely related to the Inuit language
s in Canada
, such as Inuktitut
. The main dialect, Kalaallisut or West Greenlandic, has been the official language of the Greenlandic autonomous territory since June 2009; this is a move by the Greenlandic government to strengthen the language in its competition with the colonial language, Danish
. Other dialects are East Greenlandic (Tunumiisut
) and the Thule dialect Inuktun or Polar Eskimo.
Greenlandic is a polysynthetic language that allows the creation of long words by stringing together roots
and suffix
es. Its morphosyntactic alignment
is ergative, meaning that it treats (i.e., case-marks) the argument ("subject") of an intransitive verb like the object of a transitive verb, but distinctly from the agent ("subject") of a transitive verb.
Nouns are inflected for one of the eight cases and for possession. Verbs are inflected for one of the eight moods
and for the number
and person
of its subject
and object
. Both nouns and verbs have complex derivational morphology. Basic word order in transitive
clause
s is subject–object–verb. Subordination of clauses is done by the use of special subordinate moods. A so-called fourth person category enables switch reference
between main clauses and subordinate clauses with different subjects. Greenlandic is notable for its lack of a system of grammatical tense, as temporal relations are normally expressed through context, through the use of temporal particles such as "yesterday" or "now" or sometimes through the use of derivational suffixes or the combination of affixes with aspectual meanings with the semantic aktionsart
of different verbs. However, some linguists have suggested that Greenlandic does mark future tense obligatorily. Another question is whether the language has Noun incorporation, or whether the processes that create complex predicates that include nominal roots are derivational in nature.
When adopting new concepts or technologies Greenlandic usually constructs new words made from Greenlandic roots, but modern Greenlandic has also taken many loans from Danish and English
. The language has been written in the Latin script since Danish colonization began in the 1700s. The first orthography was developed by Samuel Kleinschmidt
in 1851, but within a hundred years already differed substantially from the spoken language due to a number of sound changes. An extensive orthographic reform undertaken in 1973 that made the script easier to learn resulted in a boost in Greenlandic literacy.
and Dorset
cultures in Greenland.
The first descriptions of Greenlandic date from the 1600s, and with the arrival of Danish missionaries in the early 1700s, and the beginning of Danish colonialism in Greenland, the compilation of dictionaries and description of grammar began. The missionary Paul Egede
wrote the first Greenlandic dictionary in 1750, and the first grammar in 1760.
From the Danish colonization in the 1700s to the beginning of Greenlandic home rule in 1979, Greenlandic experienced increasing pressure from the Danish language. In the 1950s, Denmark's linguistic policies were directed at replacing Greenlandic with Danish. Of primary significance was that post primary education and official functions were conducted in Danish.
From 1851 to 1973 Greenlandic was written in a complicated orthography devised by the missionary linguist Samuel Kleinschmidt. In 1973 a new orthography was introduced, intended to bring the written language closer to the spoken standard, which had changed considerably since Kleinschmidt's time. The reform was effective and in the years following it Greenlandic literacy received a boost.
Another development that strengthened the Greenlandic language has been the policy of "greenlandization" of Greenlandic society which began with the homerule agreement of 1979. This policy has worked to reverse the former trend towards marginalization of the Greenlandic language by making it the official language of education. The fact that Greenlandic has become the only language used in primary schooling has meant that today monolingual Danish speaking parents in Greenland are raising children bilingual in Danish and Greenlandic.
Before June 2009, Greenlandic shared its status as the official language in Greenland with Danish.According to the Namminersornerullutik Oqartussat / Grønlands Hjemmestyres (Greenlands Home, official website): « Language. The official languages are Greenlandic and Danish... Greenlandic is the language [that is] used in schools and [that] dominates in most towns and settlements ». http://uk.nanoq.gl/Emner/About/Culture.aspx Since then, Greenlandic has become the sole official language. This has made Greenlandic a unique example of an indigenous language of the Americas
that serves exclusively as an official language of a semi-independent country, yet it is still considered to be in a "vulnerable" state by the UNESCO Red Book of Language Endangerment
. The country has a 100% literacy rate.
and Alaska
. Illustration 1 shows the locations of the different Eskimoan languages, among them the three main dialects of Greenlandic.
The most prominent Greenlandic dialect is West Greenlandic (Kalaallisut), which is the official language of Greenland. The name Kalaallisut is often used as a cover term for all of Greenlandic. The northern dialect, Inuktun
(Avanersuarmiutut), spoken in the vicinity of the city of Qaanaaq
(Thule), is particularly closely related to Canadian Inuktitut. The eastern dialect (Tunumiit oraasiat), spoken in the vicinity of the towns of Ammassalik
and Scoresbysund, is the most innovative of the Greenlandic dialects, having assimilated
consonant cluster
s and vowel sequences to a greater extent than West Greenlandic. Kalaallisut is further divided into four subdialects. One that is spoken around Upernavik
has certain similarities to East Greenlandic, possibly because of a previous migration from eastern Greenland. A second dialect is spoken in the region of Uummannaq
and the Disko Bay
. The standard language is based on the central Kalaallisut dialect spoken in Sisimiut
in the north, around Nuuk
and as far south as Maniitsoq
. Southern Kalaallisut is spoken around Narsaq
and Qaqortoq
in the south. Table 1 shows the differences in the pronunciation of the word for "humans" in the three main dialects. It can be seen that Inuktun is the most conservative, and Tunumiisut the most innovative.
Michael Fortescue
, a specialist in Eskimo–Aleut as well as in Chukotko-Kamchatkan, argues for a link between Uralic
, Yukaghir
, Chukotko-Kamchatkan
, and Eskimo–Aleut in Language Relations Across Bering Strait (1998). He calls this proposed grouping Uralo-Siberian.
transcription, letters in square brackets [ ] indicate phonetic transcription
and letters in triangular brackets<> indicate standard Greenlandic orthography.
system, composed of /i/, /u/, and /a/, is typical for an Eskimo–Aleut language. Double vowels are pronounced as two moras
, so they are phonologically a vowel sequence and not a long vowel; they are also written as two vowels in the orthography. The only diphthong in the language is /ai/, which occurs only at the ends of words. Before a uvular consonant
([q] or [ʁ]), /i/ is realized allophonically as [e] or [ɛ] and /u/ as [o] or [ɔ]. This alternation is shown in the modern orthography by writing /i/ and /u/ as and respectively before uvulars
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
. It is closely related to the Inuit language
Inuit language
The Inuit language is traditionally spoken across the North American Arctic and to some extent in the subarctic in Labrador. The related Yupik languages are spoken in western and southern Alaska and Russian Far East, particularly the Diomede Islands, but is severely endangered in Russia today and...
s in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, such as Inuktitut
Inuktitut
Inuktitut or Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, Eastern Canadian Inuit language is the name of some of the Inuit languages spoken in Canada...
. The main dialect, Kalaallisut or West Greenlandic, has been the official language of the Greenlandic autonomous territory since June 2009; this is a move by the Greenlandic government to strengthen the language in its competition with the colonial language, Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
. Other dialects are East Greenlandic (Tunumiisut
Tunumiit language
Tunumiit oraasiat, known as Tunumiisut in Greenlandic and also as East Greenlandic in English, is a variety of Inuit spoken in eastern Greenland. It is generally considered a divergent dialect of Greenlandic, but verges on being a distinct language....
) and the Thule dialect Inuktun or Polar Eskimo.
Greenlandic is a polysynthetic language that allows the creation of long words by stringing together roots
Root (linguistics)
The root word is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family , which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents....
and suffix
Suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
es. Its morphosyntactic alignment
Morphosyntactic alignment
In linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the system used to distinguish between the arguments of transitive verbs and those of intransitive verbs...
is ergative, meaning that it treats (i.e., case-marks) the argument ("subject") of an intransitive verb like the object of a transitive verb, but distinctly from the agent ("subject") of a transitive verb.
Nouns are inflected for one of the eight cases and for possession. Verbs are inflected for one of the eight moods
Grammatical mood
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
and for the number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
and person
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
of its subject
Subject (grammar)
The subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle and that is associated with phrase structure grammars; the other constituent is the predicate. According to another tradition, i.e...
and object
Object (grammar)
An object in grammar is part of a sentence, and often part of the predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb. Basically, it is what or whom the verb is acting upon...
. Both nouns and verbs have complex derivational morphology. Basic word order in transitive
Transitivity (grammatical category)
In linguistics, transitivity is a property of verbs that relates to whether a verb can take direct objects and how many such objects a verb can take...
clause
Clause
In grammar, a clause is the smallest grammatical unit that can express a complete proposition. In some languages it may be a pair or group of words that consists of a subject and a predicate, although in other languages in certain clauses the subject may not appear explicitly as a noun phrase,...
s is subject–object–verb. Subordination of clauses is done by the use of special subordinate moods. A so-called fourth person category enables switch reference
Switch reference
In linguistics, switch-reference describes any clause-level morpheme that signals whether certain prominent arguments in 'adjacent' clauses co-refer...
between main clauses and subordinate clauses with different subjects. Greenlandic is notable for its lack of a system of grammatical tense, as temporal relations are normally expressed through context, through the use of temporal particles such as "yesterday" or "now" or sometimes through the use of derivational suffixes or the combination of affixes with aspectual meanings with the semantic aktionsart
Aktionsart
The lexical aspect or aktionsart of a verb is a part of the way in which that verb is structured in relation to time. Any event, state, process, or action which a verb expresses—collectively, any eventuality—may also be said to have the same lexical aspect...
of different verbs. However, some linguists have suggested that Greenlandic does mark future tense obligatorily. Another question is whether the language has Noun incorporation, or whether the processes that create complex predicates that include nominal roots are derivational in nature.
When adopting new concepts or technologies Greenlandic usually constructs new words made from Greenlandic roots, but modern Greenlandic has also taken many loans from Danish and English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. The language has been written in the Latin script since Danish colonization began in the 1700s. The first orthography was developed by Samuel Kleinschmidt
Samuel Kleinschmidt
Samuel Petrus Kleinschmidt was a German/Danish missionary linguist born in Greenland known for having written extensively about the Greenlandic language and having invented the orthography used for writing this language from 1851 to 1973....
in 1851, but within a hundred years already differed substantially from the spoken language due to a number of sound changes. An extensive orthographic reform undertaken in 1973 that made the script easier to learn resulted in a boost in Greenlandic literacy.
History
The Greenlandic language was brought to Greenland with the arrival of the Thule culture in the 1200s. It is unknown which languages were spoken by the earlier SaqqaqSaqqaq culture
The Saqqaq culture was a Paleo-Eskimo culture in Greenland.-Timeframe:...
and Dorset
Dorset culture
The Dorset culture was a Paleo-Eskimo culture that preceded the Inuit culture in Arctic North America. It has been defined as having four phases, with distinct technology related to the people's hunting and tool making...
cultures in Greenland.
The first descriptions of Greenlandic date from the 1600s, and with the arrival of Danish missionaries in the early 1700s, and the beginning of Danish colonialism in Greenland, the compilation of dictionaries and description of grammar began. The missionary Paul Egede
Paul Egede
Paul Egede was a Danish-Norwegian theologian, missionary to Greenland and scholar of the Greenlandic language....
wrote the first Greenlandic dictionary in 1750, and the first grammar in 1760.
From the Danish colonization in the 1700s to the beginning of Greenlandic home rule in 1979, Greenlandic experienced increasing pressure from the Danish language. In the 1950s, Denmark's linguistic policies were directed at replacing Greenlandic with Danish. Of primary significance was that post primary education and official functions were conducted in Danish.
From 1851 to 1973 Greenlandic was written in a complicated orthography devised by the missionary linguist Samuel Kleinschmidt. In 1973 a new orthography was introduced, intended to bring the written language closer to the spoken standard, which had changed considerably since Kleinschmidt's time. The reform was effective and in the years following it Greenlandic literacy received a boost.
Another development that strengthened the Greenlandic language has been the policy of "greenlandization" of Greenlandic society which began with the homerule agreement of 1979. This policy has worked to reverse the former trend towards marginalization of the Greenlandic language by making it the official language of education. The fact that Greenlandic has become the only language used in primary schooling has meant that today monolingual Danish speaking parents in Greenland are raising children bilingual in Danish and Greenlandic.
Before June 2009, Greenlandic shared its status as the official language in Greenland with Danish.According to the Namminersornerullutik Oqartussat / Grønlands Hjemmestyres (Greenlands Home, official website): « Language. The official languages are Greenlandic and Danish... Greenlandic is the language [that is] used in schools and [that] dominates in most towns and settlements ». http://uk.nanoq.gl/Emner/About/Culture.aspx Since then, Greenlandic has become the sole official language. This has made Greenlandic a unique example of an indigenous language of the Americas
Indigenous languages of the Americas
Indigenous languages of the Americas are spoken by indigenous peoples from Alaska and Greenland to the southern tip of South America, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas. These indigenous languages consist of dozens of distinct language families as well as many language...
that serves exclusively as an official language of a semi-independent country, yet it is still considered to be in a "vulnerable" state by the UNESCO Red Book of Language Endangerment
Red Book of Endangered Languages
The Red Book of Endangered Languages was published by UNESCO and collected a comprehensive list of the world's languages currently facing extinction...
. The country has a 100% literacy rate.
Classification
Kalaallisut and the other Greenlandic dialects belong to the Eskimo–Aleut family and are closely related to the Inuit languages of CanadaCanada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
. Illustration 1 shows the locations of the different Eskimoan languages, among them the three main dialects of Greenlandic.
| English | Kalaallisut | Inuktun | Tunumiisut |
|---|---|---|---|
| humans | inuit | inughuit | iivit |
The most prominent Greenlandic dialect is West Greenlandic (Kalaallisut), which is the official language of Greenland. The name Kalaallisut is often used as a cover term for all of Greenlandic. The northern dialect, Inuktun
Inuktun
Inuktun is the language of approximately 1000 indigenous Inughuit, inhabiting the world's northernmost settlements in Qaanaaq and the surrounding villages in northwestern Greenland. All speakers of Inuktun also speak Standard West Greenlandic and many also speak Danish and a few also English...
(Avanersuarmiutut), spoken in the vicinity of the city of Qaanaaq
Qaanaaq
Qaanaaq is the main town in the northern part of the Qaasuitsup municipality in northwestern Greenland. It is one of the northernmost towns in the world. The inhabitants of Qaanaaq speak the West Greenlandic language and many also speak Inuktun. The town has a population of 626 as of 2010...
(Thule), is particularly closely related to Canadian Inuktitut. The eastern dialect (Tunumiit oraasiat), spoken in the vicinity of the towns of Ammassalik
Ammassalik
Ammassalik was one of two municipalities in Tunu, the former county of East Greenland − the other one being Illoqqortoormiut . It was located in southeastern Greenland, and with an area of 232,100 km², most of it on the ice sheet, it was the largest municipality of East Greenland, now part of the...
and Scoresbysund, is the most innovative of the Greenlandic dialects, having assimilated
Assimilation (linguistics)
Assimilation is a common phonological process by which the sound of the ending of one word blends into the sound of the beginning of the following word. This occurs when the parts of the mouth and vocal cords start to form the beginning sounds of the next word before the last sound has been...
consonant cluster
Consonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
s and vowel sequences to a greater extent than West Greenlandic. Kalaallisut is further divided into four subdialects. One that is spoken around Upernavik
Upernavik
Upernavik is a small town in the Qaasuitsup municipality in northwestern Greenland, located on a small island of the same name. With 1,129 inhabitants as of 2010, it is the thirteenth-largest town in Greenland. Due to the small size of the settlement, everything is within walking distance...
has certain similarities to East Greenlandic, possibly because of a previous migration from eastern Greenland. A second dialect is spoken in the region of Uummannaq
Uummannaq
Uummannaq is a town in the Qaasuitsup municipality, in northwestern Greenland. With 1,299 inhabitants as of 2010, it is the eleventh-largest town in Greenland, and is home to the country's most northerly ferry terminal...
and the Disko Bay
Disko Bay
Disko Bay is a bay on the western coast of Greenland. The bay constitutes a wide southeastern inlet of Baffin Bay.- Geography :To the south the coastline is complicated with multiple waterways of skerries and small islands in the Aasiaat archipelago...
. The standard language is based on the central Kalaallisut dialect spoken in Sisimiut
Sisimiut
Sisimiut is a town in central-western Greenland, located on the coast of Davis Strait, approximately north of Nuuk. It is the administrative center of the Qeqqata Municipality and the second-largest town in Greenland, with a population of 5,460 people as of 2010. The site of the present-day town...
in the north, around Nuuk
Nuuk
Nuuk, is the capital of Greenland, the northernmost capital in North America and the largest city in Greenland. Located in the Nuup Kangerlua fjord, the city lies on the eastern shore of the Labrador Sea and on the west coast of Sermersooq. Nuuk is the largest cultural and economic center in...
and as far south as Maniitsoq
Maniitsoq
Maniitsoq is a town in the Qeqqata municipality in western Greenland. With 2,784 inhabitants as of 2010, it is the sixth-largest town in Greenland...
. Southern Kalaallisut is spoken around Narsaq
Narsaq
Narsaq is a town in the Kujalleq municipality in southern Greenland. The name Narsaq is Greenlandic for "plain", referring to the beautiful plain on the shore of Tunulliarfik Fjord where the town is located.- History :...
and Qaqortoq
Qaqortoq
Qaqortoq is a town in the Kujalleq municipality in southern Greenland. With a population of 3,230 as of 2011, it is the most populous town in southern Greenland, and the fourth-largest town in the country. The name is western Greenlandic and means "[the] white [one]".- History :The area around...
in the south. Table 1 shows the differences in the pronunciation of the word for "humans" in the three main dialects. It can be seen that Inuktun is the most conservative, and Tunumiisut the most innovative.
Michael Fortescue
Michael Fortescue
Michael David Fortescue is a British-born linguist specializing in Arctic and native North American languages, including Kalaallisut, Inuktun, Chukchi and Nitinaht. He is professor of General Linguistics at the University of Copenhagen and chairman of the Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen...
, a specialist in Eskimo–Aleut as well as in Chukotko-Kamchatkan, argues for a link between Uralic
Uralic languages
The Uralic languages constitute a language family of some three dozen languages spoken by approximately 25 million people. The healthiest Uralic languages in terms of the number of native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Mari and Udmurt...
, Yukaghir
Yukaghir
The Yukaghir, or Yukagirs , деткиль ) are a people in East Siberia, living in the basin of the Kolyma River.-Region:The Tundra Yukaghirs live in the Lower Kolyma region in the Sakha Republic; the Taiga Yukaghirs in the Upper Kolyma region in the Sakha Republic and in Srednekansky District of...
, Chukotko-Kamchatkan
Chukotko-Kamchatkan
Chukotko-Kamchatkan can refer to:* Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages* Chukotko-Kamchatkan peoples...
, and Eskimo–Aleut in Language Relations Across Bering Strait (1998). He calls this proposed grouping Uralo-Siberian.
Phonology
Letters between slashes // indicate phonemicPhoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
transcription, letters in square brackets [ ] indicate phonetic transcription
Phonetic transcription
Phonetic transcription is the visual representation of speech sounds . The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet, e.g., the International Phonetic Alphabet....
and letters in triangular brackets
Vowels
The Greenlandic three vowelVowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
system, composed of /i/, /u/, and /a/, is typical for an Eskimo–Aleut language. Double vowels are pronounced as two moras
Mora (linguistics)
Mora is a unit in phonology that determines syllable weight, which in some languages determines stress or timing. As with many technical linguistic terms, the definition of a mora varies. Perhaps the most succinct working definition was provided by the American linguist James D...
, so they are phonologically a vowel sequence and not a long vowel; they are also written as two vowels in the orthography. The only diphthong in the language is /ai/, which occurs only at the ends of words. Before a uvular consonant
Uvular consonant
Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and...
([q] or [ʁ]), /i/ is realized allophonically as [e] or [ɛ] and /u/ as [o] or [ɔ]. This alternation is shown in the modern orthography by writing /i/ and /u/ as
and. For example:
- /ui/ "husband" pronounced [ui].
- /uiqarpuq/ "she has a husband" pronounced [ueqaʁpɔq] and written
.
- /illu/ "house" pronounced [iɬːu].
- /illuqarpuq/ "he has a house" pronounced [iɬːoqaʁpɔq] and written
.
Consonants
Greenlandic has consonantConsonantIn articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
s at five points of articulation: labialLabial consonantLabial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals...
, alveolarAlveolar consonantAlveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
, palatal, velar and uvular. It does not have phonemic voicingVoicingVoicing may refer to:* Voice , a property of speech sounds * Consonant voicing and devoicing, a phonological change* Voicing , a representation of a chord* Voice acting...
contrast, but rather distinguishes stops from fricatives. It distinguishes stops, fricatives, and nasals at the labial, alveolar, velar, and uvular points of articulation.The uvular nasal [ɴ] is not found in all dialects and there is dialectal variability regarding its status as a phoneme (Rischel 1974:176–181) The earlier palatal sibilant [ʃ] has merged with [s] in all but a few dialects. The labiodental fricative [f] is only contrastive in loanwordLoanwordA loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s. The alveolar stop [t] is pronounced as an affricate [t͡s] before the high front vowel /i/. Often Danish loanwords are written with Danish letters for voiced stops ⟨b d g⟩, for example ⟨baaja⟩ "beer" and ⟨Guuti⟩ "God", but in Greenlandic these stops are pronounced exactly as /p t k/, i.e. [paːja] and [kuːtˢi].
2. Consonants of Kalaallisut Labial Labial consonantLabial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals...Alveolar Alveolar consonantAlveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...Palatal Palatal consonantPalatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...Velar Velar consonantVelars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....Uvular Uvular consonantUvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and...Stop Stop consonantIn phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
s/p/ - /t/ - /k/ - /q/ - Fricative Fricative consonantFricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...
s/v/ - is the way of writing the devoiced /vv/ geminate, otherwise only occurs in loanwords. /s/ - (/ʃ/)/ʃ/ is found in some dialects, but not in the standard language. /ɣ/ - /ʁ/ - Nasal Nasal consonantA nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
s/m/ - /n/ - /ŋ/ - /ɴ/ - Liquid Liquid consonantIn phonetics, liquids or liquid consonants are a class of consonants consisting of lateral consonants together with rhotics.-Description:...
s/l/ - ~ [ɬ] - Semivowel SemivowelIn phonetics and phonology, a semivowel is a sound, such as English or , that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.-Classification:.../j/ -
Phonological constraints
The Kalaallisut syllableSyllableA syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
is simple, allowing syllables of (C)(V)V(C), where C is a consonant and V is a vowel and VV is a double vowel or word-final /ai/. Native words may only begin with a vowel or /p, t, k, q, s, m, n/; they may end only in /p, t, k, q/ or rarely /n/. Consonant clusters only occur over syllable boundaries and their pronunciation is subject to regressive assimilations that convert them into geminates. All non-nasal consonants in a cluster are voiceless.
Prosody
Greenlandic prosody does not include stressStress (linguistics)In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
as an autonomous category; instead, prosodyProsody (linguistics)In linguistics, prosody is the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech. Prosody may reflect various features of the speaker or the utterance: the emotional state of the speaker; the form of the utterance ; the presence of irony or sarcasm; emphasis, contrast, and focus; or other elements of...
is determined by tonalTone (linguistics)Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
and durational parameters. IntonationIntonation (linguistics)In linguistics, intonation is variation of pitch while speaking which is not used to distinguish words. It contrasts with tone, in which pitch variation does distinguish words. Intonation, rhythm, and stress are the three main elements of linguistic prosody...
is influenced by syllable weight: heavy syllables are pronounced in a way that may be perceived as stress. Heavy syllables include syllables with long vowels and syllables before consonant clusters. The last syllable is stressed in words with less than four syllables and without long vowels or consonant clusters. The antepenultimate syllable is stressed in words with more than four syllables that are all light. In words with many heavy syllables, syllables with long vowels are considered heavier than syllables before a consonant cluster.
Geminate consonants are pronounced long, almost exactly with the double duration of a single consonant.
Intonation in indicative clauses usually rises on the antepenultimate syllable, falls on the penult and rises on the last syllable. Interrogative intonation rises on the penultimate and falls on the last syllable.
Morphophonology
Greenlandic phonology distinguishes itself phonologically from the other Inuit languages by a series of assimilations.
Greenlandic phonology allows clusters, but it does not allow clusters of two different consonants unless the first one is /r/. The first consonant in a cluster is always assimilated to the second one resulting in a geminate consonant. Geminate /tt/ is pronounced [ts] and written. Geminate /ll/ is pronounced [ɬː]. Geminate /ɡɡ/ is pronounced [çː]. Geminate /ʁʁ/ is pronounced [χː]. Geminate /vv/ is pronounced [fː] and written . /v/ is also pronounced and written [f] after /r/.
These assimilations mean that one of the most recognizable Inuktitut words, iglu ("house"), is illu in Greenlandic, where the /ɡl/ consonant cluster of Inuktitut is assimilated into an unvoiced lateral affricate. And the word Inuktitut itself, when translated into Kalaallisut, becomes Inuttut. The Old Greenlandic diphthong /au/ has assimilated to /aa/.
The consonant /v/ has disappeared when between /u/ and /i/ or /a/. This means that affixes beginning with -va or -vi have forms without [v] when suffixed to stems ending in /u/.
The vowel /i/ of modern Greenlandic is the result of an historic merger of the Proto-Eskimo–Aleut vowels *i and *ɪ. The fourth vowel was still present in Old Greenlandic as attested by Hans Egede. In modern West Greenlandic the difference between the two original vowels can only be discerned morphophonologicallyMorphophonologyMorphophonology is a branch of linguistics which studies, in general, the interaction between morphological and phonetic processes. When a morpheme is attached to a word, it can alter the phonetic environments of other morphemes in that word. Morphophonemics attempts to describe this process...
in certain environments. The vowel that was originally *ɪ has the variant [a] when preceding another vowel and sometimes disappears before certain suffixes.
The degree to which the assimilation of consonant clusters has taken place is an important dialectal feature separating Polar Eskimo, InuktunInuktunInuktun is the language of approximately 1000 indigenous Inughuit, inhabiting the world's northernmost settlements in Qaanaaq and the surrounding villages in northwestern Greenland. All speakers of Inuktun also speak Standard West Greenlandic and many also speak Danish and a few also English...
, which still allows some ungeminated consonant clusters, from West and East Greenlandic. East Greenlandic has shifted some geminate consonants, e.g. [ɬː] to [tː]. In Tunumiisut, for example, the name of the town Scoresbysund is ittoqqotoormiit which would be illoqqortoormiut in Kalaallisut.
Grammar
The morphologyMorphology (linguistics)In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
of Greenlandic is highly synthetic and exclusively suffixing. It creates very long words by means of adding strings of suffixes to a stem.For example the word Nalunaarasuartaatilioqateeraliorfinnialikkersaatiginialikkersaatilillaranatagoorunarsuarooq which means something like "Once again they tried to build a giant radio station, but it was apparently only on the drawing board" In principle there is no limit to the length of a Greenlandic word, but in practice words with more than half a dozen derivational suffixes are not so frequent, and the average number of morphemes per word is 3 to 5.Compare this with the English rate of slightly more than one morpheme per word. The language employs around 318 inflectional suffixes and between four and five hundred derivational ones.
There are few compound words, but lots of derivations. The grammar employs a mixture of headHead-marking languageA head-marking language is one where the grammatical marks showing relations between different constituents of a phrase tend to be placed on the heads of the phrase in question, rather than the modifiers or dependents. In a noun phrase, the head is the main noun and the dependents are the...
and dependent markingDependent-marking languageA dependent-marking language is one where the grammatical marks showing relations between different constituents of a phrase tend to be placed on the dependents or modifiers, rather than the heads of the phrase in question. In a noun phrase, the head is the main noun and the dependents are the...
: both agentAgent (grammar)In linguistics, a grammatical agent is the cause or initiator of an event. Agent is the name of the thematic role...
and patientPatient (grammar)In linguistics, a grammatical patient, also called the target or undergoer, is the participant of a situation upon whom an action is carried out. A patient as differentiated from a theme must undergo a change in state. A theme is denoted by a stative verb, where a patient is denoted by a dynamic...
are marked on the predicate and the possessor is marked on nouns, while dependent noun phraseNoun phraseIn grammar, a noun phrase, nominal phrase, or nominal group is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like word optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives....
s inflect for case. The morphosyntactic alignment of Kalaallisut is ergative.
The language distinguishes four persons (1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th or 3rd reflexive (see Obviation and switch reference), two numbers (singular and plural; no dualDual (grammatical number)Dual is a grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and plural. When a noun or pronoun appears in dual form, it is interpreted as referring to precisely two of the entities identified by the noun or pronoun...
as in Inuktitut), eight moods (indicative, participial, imperative, optative, past subjunctive, future subjunctive and habitual subjunctive) and eight cases (absolutive, ergative, equative, instrumental, locative, allative, ablative and prolative). Verbs carry a bipersonal inflection for subject and object. Possessive noun phrases inflect for their possessor, as well as for case.
In this section the examples are written in Greenlandic standard orthography except that morpheme boundaries are indicated by a hyphen.
Syntax
Greenlandic distinguishes three open word classesOpen class (linguistics)In linguistics, a word class may be either an open class or a closed class. Open classes accept the addition of new morphemes , through such processes as compounding, derivation, inflection, coining, and borrowing; closed classes generally do not....
: nounNounIn linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
s, verbVerbA verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
s and particlesGrammatical particleIn grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition...
. Verbs inflect for person and number of subject and object as well as for mood. Nouns inflect for possession and for case. Particles do not inflect.
Verb:
Noun:
- Angut "A man"
- man.ABS
Particle:
- Naamik "No"
- No
The verb is the only word required to build a sentence. Since verbs inflect for number and person of both subject and object, the verb is in fact a clause itself. Therefore, clauses where all participants are expressed as free-standing noun phrases are rather rare. The following examples show the possibilities of leaving out these verbal arguments:
Intransitive clause with no subject noun phrase:
- Sini-ppoq "(S)he sleeps"
- sleep-3p/INDIn glosses of examples in Greenlandic the abbreviation "3p" means "third person singular" and has the same meaning as the English third person pronouns he, she and it, but it does not carry any information about gender.
Intransitive clause with subject noun phrase:
- Angut sinippoq "the man sleeps"
- man.ABS sleep-3p/IND
Transitive clause with no overt arguments:
- Asa-vaa "(S)he loves him/her/it"
- love-3p/3p
Transitive clause with agent noun phrase:
- Angut-ip asa-vaa "the man loves her"
- man-ERG love-3p/3p
Transitive clause with patient noun phrase:
- Arnaq asa-vaa "he loves the woman"
- woman.ABS love-3p/3p
Morphosyntactic alignment
The Greenlandic language uses case to express grammatical relations between participants in a sentence. Nouns are inflected with one of the two core cases or one of the six oblique cases.
Greenlandic is an ergative language. This means that, instead of treating the grammatical relations as in most European languages where grammatical subjectsSubject (grammar)The subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle and that is associated with phrase structure grammars; the other constituent is the predicate. According to another tradition, i.e...
are marked with nominative caseNominative caseThe nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments...
and objectsObject (grammar)An object in grammar is part of a sentence, and often part of the predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb. Basically, it is what or whom the verb is acting upon...
with accusative, the grammatical roles are defined differently. In Greenlandic the ergative case is used for agentAgent (grammar)In linguistics, a grammatical agent is the cause or initiator of an event. Agent is the name of the thematic role...
s of transitive verbs and for possessors. Absolutive case is used for patients of transitive nouns and subjects of intransitive nouns. Research into Greenlandic as used by the younger generation has shown that the use of ergative alignment in Kalaallisut may be becoming obsolete, converting the language into an nominative–accusative language.
Intransitive:
- Anda sini-ppoq "Anda sleeps"
- Anda.ABS sleep-3p/IND
Transitive with agent and object:
- Anda-p nanoq taku-aa "Anda sees a bear"
- Anda.ERG bear-ABS see-3p/3p
Word order
In transitive clauses where both object and subject are expressed as free noun phrases, basic, pragmatically neutral word order is AOXV / SXV, where X is a noun phrase in one of the oblique cases. This order is fairly free, though. Topical noun phrases occur at the beginning of a clause whereas new or emphasized information generally come last. This is usually the verb, but it can also be a focal subject or object as well. In spoken language also "afterthought" material or clarifications may follow the verb, usually in a lowered pitch.
On the other hand, the noun phrase is characterized by a rigid order where the head of the phrase precedes any modifiers and the possessor precedes the possessum.
In copula clauses the order is usually Subject-Copula-Complement.
- Andap tujuuluk pisiaraa "Anda bought the sweater"
- Anda sweater bought
- A O V
An attribute appears after its head noun.
- Andap tujuuluk tungujortoq pisiaraa "Anda bought the blue sweater"
- Anda sweater blue bought
- A O X V
An attribute of an incorporated noun appears after the verb:
- Anda sanasuuvoq pikkorissoq "Anda is a skilled carpenter"
- Anda carpenter.IS skilled
- S V APP
Coordination and Subordination
Syntactic coordinationCoordination (linguistics)In linguistics, a coordination is a complex syntactic structure that links together two or more elements, known as conjuncts or conjoins. Coordinators are typically: "and" and "or"...
and subordinationSubordination (linguistics)In linguistics, subordination is a complex syntactic construction in which one or more clauses are dependent on the main clause, such as The dog ran home after it had played with the ball. The italicized text is the subordinate clause...
is done by combining predicates in the superordinate moods (indicative, interrogative, imperative, optative) with predicates in the subordinate moods (conditional, causative, contemporative and participial). The contemporative has both coordinative and subordinative functions depending on context. The relative order of the main clause and its coordinate or subordinate clauses is relatively free, and mostly subject to pragmaticPragmaticsPragmatics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, and linguistics. It studies how the...
concerns.
Obviation and switch reference
The Greenlandic pronominal system includes a distinction known as obviationObviativeObviate third person person is a grammatical person marking that distinguishes a non-salient third person referent from a more salient third person referent in a given discourse context...
or switch referenceSwitch referenceIn linguistics, switch-reference describes any clause-level morpheme that signals whether certain prominent arguments in 'adjacent' clauses co-refer...
. There is a special so-called fourth person used to denote a third person subject of a subordinate verb or the possessor of a noun that is coreferent with the third person subject of the matrix clause. Below are examples of the difference between third and fourth person:
- illu-a taku-aa "he saw his (the other man's) house"
- house-3POSS see-3p/3p
- illu-ni taku-aa "he saw his own house"
- house-4POSS see-3p/3p
- Ole oqar-poq tillu-kkiga "Ole said I had hit him (the other man)"
- Ole say-3p hit-I/3p
- Ole oqar-poq tillu-kkini "Ole said I had hit him (Ole)"
- Ole say-3p hit-I/4pThe abbreviation "4p" refers to the fourth or reflexive person.
- Eva iser-uni sini-ssaa-q "When Eva comes in she'll sleep"
- Eva come.in-4p sleep-expect-3p
- Eva iser-pat sini-ssaa-q When Eva comes in (s)he'll sleep (someone else).
- Eva come.in-3p sleep-expect-3p
Indefiniteness construction
There is no category of definitenessDefinitenessIn grammatical theory, definiteness is a feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between entities which are specific and identifiable in a given context and entities which are not ....
in Greenlandic, so the information whether participants are already known to the listener or new in the discourse is encoded by other means. According to some authors, morphology related to transitivity such as the use of the construction sometimes called antipassiveAntipassive voiceThe antipassive voice is a verb voice that works on transitive verbs by deleting the object. This construction is similar to the passive voice, in that it decreases the verb's valency by one - the passive by deleting the subject , the antipassive by deleting the object The antipassive voice...
or intransitive object conveys such meaning, along with strategies of noun incorporation of non-topical noun phrases. This view, however, is controversial.
Active:
- Piitap arfeq takuaa "Peter saw the whale"
- Peter-ERG whale see
Antipassive/intransitive object:
- Piitaq arfermik takuvoq "Peter saw (a) whale"
- Peter-ABS whale-INSTR see
Verbs
The morphology of Greenlandic verbs is enormously complex. The two main processes are inflectionInflectionIn grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
and derivationDerivation (linguistics)In linguistics, derivation is the process of forming a new word on the basis of an existing word, e.g. happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine...
. Inflectional morphology includes the processes of obligatory inflection for mood, person, and voiceVoice (grammar)In grammar, the voice of a verb describes the relationship between the action that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its arguments . When the subject is the agent or doer of the action, the verb is in the active voice...
(tense/aspectGrammatical aspectIn linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...
is not an inflectional category in Kalaallisut). Derivational morphology modifies the meaning of verbs in a way similar to that expressed by adverbAdverbAn adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
s in English. Derivational suffixes of this kind number in the hundreds. Many of these suffixes are so semantically salient that they are often referred to as postbasePostbaseIn linguistics a postbase is a special kind of grammatical suffixing morpheme that is suffixed to a base. It is mostly found in Eskimo–Aleut languages. Postbases differ from most other affixes in that they usually carry a much more salient semantic content than affixes in other languages and are...
s rather than suffixes, particularly in the American tradition of Eskimo grammar. Such semantically "heavy" suffixes may express concepts such as "to have", "to be", "to say", or "to think". The Greenlandic verb word consists of a root + derivational suffixes/postbases + inflectional suffixes. Tense and aspect is marked by optional suffixes that appear between the derivational and inflectional suffixes.
Inflection
Greenlandic verbs inflect for agreementAgreement (linguistics)In languages, agreement or concord is a form of cross-reference between different parts of a sentence or phrase. Agreement happens when a word changes form depending on the other words to which it relates....
with agent and patient, for mood and for voice. There are eight moods, of which four are used in independent clauses and four in subordinate clauses. The four independent moods are: indicative, interrogativeInterrogative moodIn linguistics and grammar, the interrogative mood is an epistemic grammatical mood used for asking questions by inflecting the main verb...
, imperativeImperative moodThe imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :...
, optative. The four dependent moods are causative, conditional, contemporative, and participial. Verbal roots can take transitive, intransitive or negative inflections, so that all eight mood suffixes have these three forms. The inflectional system is further complicated by the fact that transitive suffixes encode both agent and patient in a single morpheme, requiring up to 48 different suffixes to cover all possible combinations of agent and patient for each of the eight transitive paradigms. As some moods do not have forms for all persons (imperative only has 2nd person, optative only 1st and 3rd person, participial mood has no 4th person and contemporative has no 3rd person), the total number of verbal inflectional suffixes is about 318.
Indicative and interrogative moods
5. Indicative and interrogative intransitive moods indicative interrogative nerivunga "I am eating" nerivunga? "Am I eating?" nerivutit "You are eating" nerivit? "Are you eating?" nerivoq "He/she/it eats" neriva "Is he/she/it eating?" nerivugut "We are eating" nerivugut? "Are we eating?" nerivusi "You are eating (pl.)" nerivisi? "Are you eating? (pl.)" neripput "They are eating" nerippat? "Are they eating?"
The indicative mood is used in all independent expository clauses. The interrogative mood is used for posing questions. Questions with the question particle immaqa "maybe" cannot use the interrogative mood.
- napparsima-vit? "Are you sick?" (interrogative mood)
- be.sick-YOU/INTERR
- naamik, napparsima-nngila-nga. "No, I am not sick" (indicative mood)
- no, be.sick-NEG-I/IND
Table 5 shows the intransitive indicative inflection for patient person and number of the verb neri- "to eat" in the indicative and interrogative moods (question marks mark interrogative intonation — questions have falling intonation on the last syllable as opposed to most Indo-European languagesIndo-European languagesThe Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
in which questions are marked by rising intonation). The indicative and the interrogative mood each have a transitive and an intransitive inflection, but here only the intransitive inflection is given. Interestingly, consonant gradationConsonant gradationConsonant gradation is a type of consonant mutation, in which consonants alternate between various "grades". It is found in some Uralic languages such as Finnish, Estonian, Northern Sámi, and the Samoyed language Nganasan. In addition, it has been reconstructed for Proto-Germanic, the parent...
like that in Finnish appears to show up in the verb conjugation (with strengthening to pp in the 3rd person plural and weakening to v elsewhere). However, otherwise, the conjugations do not resemble Finnish, whose verb conjugations are more like those in Indo-European languages.
Table 6 shows the transitive indicative inflection for patient person and number of the verb asa- "to love" (an asterisk means that this form does not occur as such but would have to use a different reflexive inflection).
6. Transitive indicative mood First person subject Second person subject Third person subject * asavarma "You love me" asavaanga "He/she/it loves me" asavakkit "I love you" * asavaatit "He/she/it loves you" asavara "I love him/her/it" asavat" "You love her/him/it" asavaa "He/she/it loves him/her/it" * asavatsigut "You love us" asavaatigut "He/she/it loves us" asavassi "I love you (pl.)" * asavaasi "He/she/it loves you (pl.)" asavakka "I love them" asavatit "You love them" asavai "He/she/it loves them"
Imperative and Optative moods
The imperative mood is used to issue orders. It is always combined with the second person. The optative is used to express wishes or exhortations and is never used with the second person. There is a negative imperative form used to issue prohibitions. Both optative and imperative have transitive and intransitive paradigms. There are two transitive positive imperative paradigms: a standard one, and one that is considered rude and is usually used to address children.
- sini-git! "Sleep!"
- sleep-IMP
- sini-llanga "Let me sleep!"
- sleep-1p.OPT
- sini-nnak! "Don't sleep!"
- sleep-NEG.IMP
Conditional mood
The conditional mood is used to construct subordinate clauses with the meaning "if" or "when".
- seqinner-pat Eva ani-ssaa-q "If the sun shines, Eva will go out"
- Sunshine-COND Eva go.out-expect/3p
Causative mood
The causative mood is used to construct subordinate clauses with the meaning "because" or "since" or "when"; it is also sometimes used with the meaning of "that". The causative is also used in main clauses to imply some underlying cause.
- qasu-gami innar-poq "He went to bed because he was tired"
- be.tired-CAU/3p go.to.bed-3p
- matta-ttor-ama "I've eaten blubber (that's why I'm not hungry)"
- blubber-eat-CAU/I
- ani-guit eqqaama-ssa-vat teriannia-qar-mat "If you go out, remember that there are foxes"
- go.out-COND/YOU remember-fut-IMP fox-are-CAUS
Contemporative mood
The contemporative mood is used to construct subordinate clauses with the meaning of simulateneity. It is only used if the subject of the subordinate clause and of the main clause are identical. If they differ, the participial mood or causative mood are used. The contemporative can also be used to form complement clauses for verbs of speaking or thinking.
- qasu-llunga angerlar-punga "Being tired, I went home"
- be.tired-CONT/I go.home-I
- 98-inik ukio-qar-luni toqu-voq "Being 98 years old, he/she died / he/she was 98 when he died"
- 98-INSTR/PL year-have-CONT/3p die-3p
- Eva oqar-poq kami-it akiler-lugit "Eva said she had paid for the boots"
- Eva say-3p boot-PL pay-CONT/3p
Participial mood
The participial mood is used to construct a subordinate clause describing its subject in the state of carrying out an activity. It is used when the matrix clause and the subordinate clause have different subjects. It is often used in appositional phrases such as relative clauses.
- atuar-toq taku-ara "I saw her read/I saw that she read"
- read-PART/3p see-I/3p
- neriu-ppunga tiki-ssa-soq "I hope he is coming/I hope he'll come"
- hope-I come-expect-PART/3p
Derivation
Verbal derivation is extremely productive, and Greenlandic employs many hundreds of derivational suffixes. Often a single verb will use more than one derivational suffix, resulting in very long words. Below are given some examples of how derivational suffixes can change the meaning of verbs.
-katap- "be tired of"
- taku-katap-para "I am tired of seeing it/him/her"
- see-tired.of-I/3p
-ler- "begin to/be about to"
- neri-ler-pugut "We are about to eat"
- eat-begin-WE
-llaqqip- "be proficient at"
- erinar-su-llaqqip-poq "She is good at singing"
- sing-HAB-proficiently-3p
-niar- "plans to/wants to"
- aallar-niar-poq "He plans to travel"
- travel-plan-3p
- angerlar-niar-aluar-punga "I was planning to go home though"
- go.home-plan-though-I
-ngajappoq- "almost"
- sini-ngajap-punga "I had almost fallen asleep"
- sleep-almost-I
-nikuu-nngila- "has never"
- taku-nikuu-nngila-ra "I have never seen it"
- see-never-NEG-I/3p
-nnitsoor- "not anyway/afterall"
- tiki-nngitsoor-poq "He hasn't arrived after all"
- arrive-not.afterall-3p
Time reference and aspect
Greenlandic grammar has morphological devices to mark a distinction between for example recent and distant past, but the use of these are not obligatory and they should therefore rather be understood as parts of Greenlandic's extensive derivational system than as a system of tense markers. Rather than by morphological marking, fixed temporal distance is expressed by temporal adverbials:
- toqo-riikatap-poq "He died long ago"
- die-long.ago-3p/IND
- nere-qqammer-punga "I ate recently"
- eat-recently-I/IND
- ippassaq Piitaq arpap-poq "Yesterday Peter was running."
- yesterday Peter-ABS run-3p/IND
All other things being equal and in the absence of any explicit adverbials, the indicative mood will be interpreted as complete or incomplete depending on the verbal aktionsartAktionsartThe lexical aspect or aktionsart of a verb is a part of the way in which that verb is structured in relation to time. Any event, state, process, or action which a verb expresses—collectively, any eventuality—may also be said to have the same lexical aspect...
.
- Piitaq arpap-poq "Peter runs"
- Peter-ABS run-3p/IND
- Piitaq ani-voq "Peter was gone out"
- Peter-ABS go.out-3p/IND
But if a sentence containing an atelic verbal phrase is embedded within the context of a past time narrative, it would be interpreted as past.
Greenlandic has several purely derivational devices of expressing meaning related to aspect and aktionsart, e.g. sar expressing “habituality” and ssaar expressing “stop to”. Next to these, there are at least two major perfect markers sima and nikuu. sima can occur in several positions with obviously different function Rightmost position indicates evidential meaning, but this can only be determined if a number of suffixes are present.
- tiki(t)-nikuu-sima-voq "Apparently, she had arrived"
- arrive-NIKUU-SIMA-3p/INT
With atelic verbsTelicityIn linguistics, telicity is the property of a verb or verb phrase that presents an action or event as being complete in some sense...
, there is a regular contrast between indirective evidentialityEvidentialityIn linguistics, evidentiality is, broadly, the indication of the nature of evidence for a given statement; that is, whether evidence exists for the statement and/or what kind of evidence exists. An evidential is the particular grammatical element that indicates evidentiality...
marked by sima and witnessed evidentiality marked by nikuu. Due to its evidential meaning, the combination of first person and sima sometimes is marked.
- qia-sima-voq "He cried (his eyes are swollen)"
- cry-SIMA-3p/IND
- qia-nikuu-voq "He cried (I was there)"
- cry-NIKUU-3p/IND
In the written language and more recently also in the spoken language especially of younger speakers, sima and nikuu can be used together with adverbials referring to a particular time in the past. That is, they might arguably mark time reference, but not yet systematically.
Just as Greenlandic does not systematically mark past tense, the language also does not have a future tense. Rather, it employs three different strategies to express future meaning:
- suffixes denoting cognitive states that show an attitude about prospective actions.
- e.g. Ilimaga-ara aasaq manna Dudley qujanar-tor-si-ffigi-ssa-llugu "I expect to get some fun out of Dudley this summer."
- expect-I/3p/IND summer this Dudley be.fun-cn-get.from-expect-CONTEMPORATIVE/3p
- inchoative suffixes creating telic actions which can then by understood as already having begun by virtue of the indicative mood.
- e.g. Aggiuti-ler-para "I've started to bring him."
- bring-begin-I/3p/IND
- moods that mark the speech act as a request or wish.
- e.g. Qimmi-t nirukkar-niar-nigik "Let us feed the dogs, ok?"
- dog-PL feed-please-we/them/IMP
While the status of the perfect markers as aspect is not very controversial, some scholars have claimed that Greenlandic has a basic temporal distinction between future and non-future. Especially, the suffix -ssa and handful of other suffixes have been claimed to be obligatory future markers. However, at least for literary Greenlandic, these suffixes have been shown to have other semantics that can be used to refer to the future via the strategies just described.
Noun Incorporation
There is also a debate in the linguistic literature whether Greenlandic has noun incorporation. This is because Greenlandic does not allow the kind of incorporation common in many languages in which a noun root can be incorporated into almost any verb to form a verb with a new meaning. On the other hand, Greenlandic does often form verbs that include noun roots. The question then becomes whether to analyse these verb formations as incorporation or as denominal derivation of verbs. Greenlandic has a number of morphemeMorphemeIn linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
s that require a noun root as their host and which form complex predicates that correspond closely in meaning to what is often seen in languages that have canonical noun incorporation. Linguists who propose that Greenlandic does have incorporation argue that these morphemes are in fact verbal roots that must obligatorily incorporate nouns to form grammatical clauses. This argument is supported by the fact that many of the derivational morphemes that form denominal verbs work almost identically to canonical noun incorporation. They allow the formation of words with a semantic content corresponding to an entire English clause with verb, subject and object. Another argument is that the morphemes used to derive denominal verbs come from historical noun incorporating constructions that have become fossilized. Other linguists maintain that the morphemes in question are simply derivational morphemes that allow the formation of denominal verbs. This argument is supported by the fact that the morphemes cannot occur without being latched on to a nominal element. The examples below illustrate how Greenlandic forms complex predicates including nominal roots.
qimmeq "dog" + -qar- "have" (+ -poq "3p")qimme-qar-poq "She has a dog"
illu "house" + -'lior- "make"
- illu-lior-poq "She builds a house"
kaffi "coffee" + -sor- "drink/eat"
- kaffi-sor-poq "She drinks coffee"
puisi "seal" + -nniar- "hunt"
- puisi-nniar-poq "She hunts seal"
allagaq "letter" + -si- "receive"
- allagar-si-voq "She has received a letter"
anaana "mother" + -a- "to be"
- anaana-a-voq "She is a mother"
Nouns
Nouns are obligatorily inflected for case and number and optionally for number and person of possessor. Singular and plural are distinguished and 8 cases used: absolutive, ergative (relative), instrumental, allative, locative, ablative, prosecutive (also called vialis or prolative), and equative. Case and number is marked by a single suffix. Nouns can be derived from verbs or from other nouns by a number of suffixes. E.g. atuar- "to read" + -fik "place" becomes atuarfik "school" and atuarfik + -tsialak "something good" becomes atuarfitsialak "good school".
The fact that the possessive agreement suffixes on nouns and the transitive agreement suffixes on verbs in a number of instances have similar or identical shapes has even resulted in the theory that Greenlandic has a distinction between transitive and intransitive nouns, parallel to the same distinction in the verbs.For example the suffix with the shape -aa means "his/hers/its" when suffixed to a noun, but "him/her/it" when suffixed to a verb, likewise the suffix -ra either means "my" or "me" depending on whether it is suffixed on a verb or a noun.
Case
The two grammatical core cases Ergative and Absolutive are used to express grammatical and syntactical roles of participant noun phrases. The oblique case expresses information related to movement and manner.
3. Kalaallisut
case endingscase singular plural Absolutive -q/-t/-k/-Ø -(i)t Ergative -(u)p -(i)t Instrumental -mik -nik Allative -mut -nut Locative -mi -ni Ablative -mit -nit Prosecutive -kkut -tigut Equative -tut -tut
- angu-t neri-voq "The man eats"
- man-ABS eat-3p
- angu-tip puisi neri-vaa "The man eats the seal"
- man-ERG seal-ABS eat-3p/3p
The instrumental caseInstrumental caseThe instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action...
is versatile. It is used for the instrument with which an action is carried out, for oblique objects of intransitive verbs (also called antipassive verbs) and for secondary objects of transitive verbs.
- nano-q savim-mi-nik kapi-vaa "He stabbed the bear with his knife"
- polar bear-ABS knife-his.own-INSTR stab-3p/3p
- kaffimik tor-tar-poq "She usually drinks coffee"
- coffee-INSTR drink-usually-3p
- Piitaq savim-mik tuni-vara "I gave Peter a knife"
- Peter-ABS knife-INSTR give-I/3p
It is also used to express the meaning of "give me" and for forming adverbs from nouns:
- imer-mik! "(give me) water"
- water-INSTR
- sivisuu-mik sinip-poq "He slept late"
- late-INSTR sleep-3p
The allative caseAllative caseAllative case is a type of the locative cases used in several languages. The term allative is generally used for the lative case in the majority of languages which do not make finer distinctions.-Finnish language:In the Finnish language, the allative is the fifth of the locative cases, with the...
describes movement towards something.
- illu-mut "towards the house"
It is also used with numerals and the question word qassit to express the time of the clock, and in the meaning "amount per unit":
- qassi-nut? – pingasu-nut. "When?" – "At three o'clock"
- when-ALL three-ALL
- kiilu-mut tivi krone-qar-poq "It costs 20 crowns per kilo"
- kilo-ALL twenty crown-have-3p
The locative case describes spatial location:
- illu-mi "in the house"
The ablative caseAblative caseIn linguistics, ablative case is a name given to cases in various languages whose common characteristic is that they mark motion away from something, though the details in each language may differ...
describes movement away from something or the source of something:
- Rasmussi-mit allagarsi-voq "He got a letter from Rasmus"
- Rasmus-ABL receive.letter-3p
- tuttu-mit nassuk " (antler)horn from a rein-deer"
- rein.deer-ABL horn
The prosecutive caseProsecutive caseThe prosecutive case is a declension found in Tundra Nenets and in Old Basque. This is a variant of the "prolative case".It is used to describe movement using a surface or way. An example is the phrase "by way of/through the house."...
describes movement through something as well as the medium of writing or a location on the body. It is also used to describe a group of people such as a family as belonging to the modified noun.
- matu-kkut iser-poq "He entered through the door"
- door-PROS enter-3p
- su-kkut tillup-paatit? "Where (on the body) did he hit you?"
- where-PROS hit-3p/YOU
- palasi-kkut "the priest and his family"
- priest-PROS
The equative caseEquative caseEquative is a case with the meaning of comparison, or likening. The equative case has been used in very few languages in history. It was used in the Sumerian language....
describes similarity of manner or quality. It is also used for deriving language names from nouns denoting nationalities, i.e. "like a person of x nationality [speaks]".
- nakorsatut suli-sar-poq "he works as a doctor"
- doctor-EQU work-HAB-3p
- Qallunaa-tut "Danish language (like a Dane)"
- dane-EQU
Possession
4. Absolutive possessive inflection for weak nouns Possessor Singular Plural 1st person Sg. illora "my house" illukka "my houses" 2nd person Sg. illut "your house" illutit "your houses" 3rd person Sg. illua "his house" illui' "his houses" 4th person Sg. illuni "his own house" illuni "his own houses" 1st person Pl. illorput "our house" illuvut "our houses" 2nd person Pl. illorsi "your (pl) house" illusi "your (pl) houses" 3rd Person Pl. illuat "their house" illui "their houses" 4th person Pl. illortik "their own house" illutik "their own houses"
In Greenlandic possessionPossession (linguistics)Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which possesses the referent of the other ....
is marked on the noun which agrees with the person and number of its possessor. The possessor is in the ergative case. There are different possessive paradigms for all of the different cases. Table 4 gives the possessive paradigm for the absolutive case of illu "house". Below are given examples of the use of the possessive inflection, the use of the ergative case for possessors and the use of fourth person possessors.
Anda-p illu-a "Anda's house"
Anda-ERG house-3p/POSS
Anda-p illu-ni taku-aa "Anda sees his own house"
Anda-ERG house-4p/POSS see-3p/3p
Anda-p illu-a taku-aa "Anda sees his (the other man's) house" Anda-ERG house-3p/POSS see-3p/3p
Vocabulary
Greenlandic vocabularyVocabularyA person's vocabulary is the set of words within a language that are familiar to that person. A vocabulary usually develops with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge...
is mostly inherited from Proto-Eskimo–Aleut, but it has also taken a large number of loans from other languages, especially from Danish. Early loans from Danish have often become acculturated to the Greenlandic phonological system, for example the Greenlandic word palasi "priest" is a loan from the Danish "præst". But since Greenlandic has an enormous potential for the derivation of new words from existing roots, many modern concepts have Greenlandic names that have been invented rather than borrowed, e.g. qarasaasiaq "computer" which literally means "artificial brain". This potential for complex derivations also means that Greenlandic vocabulary is built on very few roots which combined with affixes come to form large word families. For example the root for "tongue" oqaq is used to derive the following words:
- oqarpoq 'says'
- oqaaseq 'word'
- oqaluppoq 'speaks'
- oqaasilerisoq 'linguist'
- oqaasilerissutit 'grammar'
- oqaluttualiortoq 'author'
- oqaasipiluuppaa 'harangues him'
- oqaloqatigiinneq 'conversation'
- oqaatiginerluppaa 'speaks badly about him'
Lexical differences between dialects are often considerable. This is due to the earlier cultural practice of imposing tabooTabooA taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society...
on words which had served as names for a deceased person. Since people were often named after everyday objects, many of these have changed their name several times because of taboo rules, causing dialectal vocabulary to diverge further.
Orthography
In contrast to most Eskimo–Aleut languages in CanadaCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Greenlandic is written with the Latin alphabetLatin alphabetThe Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
and not with the Inuktitut syllabary.
From 1851 and until 1973 Greenlandic was written in the orthography invented by Samuel KleinschmidtSamuel KleinschmidtSamuel Petrus Kleinschmidt was a German/Danish missionary linguist born in Greenland known for having written extensively about the Greenlandic language and having invented the orthography used for writing this language from 1851 to 1973....
. This orthography employed the special character kraKra (letter)Kra is a character formerly used to write the Kalaallisut language of Greenland and is now only found in the Labrador Inuit Language of Inuttitut, a distinct Inuktitut dialect. It is visually similar to a Latin small capital letter K and the Greek letter kappa κ.It is used to denote the sound...
() which was replaced by qQQ is the seventeenth letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.- History :The Semitic sound value of Qôp was , a sound common to Semitic languages, but not found in English or most Indo-European ones...
in the 1973 reform. In the Kleinschmidt orthography long vowels and geminate consonants were indicated by means of diacritics on the vowels (in the case of consonant gemination, the diacritics were placed on the vowel preceding the affected consonant). For example, the name Kalaallit Nunaat was spelled Kalâdlit Nunât. This scheme doesn't use an acute accentAcute accentThe acute accent is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts.-Apex:An early precursor of the acute accent was the apex, used in Latin inscriptions to mark long vowels.-Greek:...
( ´ ) to indicate double consonants: (i.e., á, í, ú modern: a(kk), i(kk), u(kk)), a tildeTildeThe tilde is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character comes from Portuguese and Spanish, from the Latin titulus meaning "title" or "superscription", though the term "tilde" has evolved and now has a different meaning in linguistics....
( ˜ ) or a grave accentGrave accentThe grave accent is a diacritical mark used in written Breton, Catalan, Corsican, Dutch, French, Greek , Italian, Mohawk, Norwegian, Occitan, Portuguese, Scottish Gaelic, Vietnamese, Welsh, Romansh, and other languages.-Greek:The grave accent was first used in the polytonic orthography of Ancient...
( ` ), depending on the author, indicates gemination of the following consonant (e.g., ãt, ĩt, ũt or àt, ìt, ùt, modern: aatt, iitt, uutt), while a circumflex accent ( ˆ ) indicates a long vowel. (e.g., ât/ît/ût, modern: aat, iit, uut). The letters ê and ô, used only before r and q, are now written er/eq and or/oq in Greenlandic. The spelling system of NunatsiavummiututNunatsiavummiututThe Nunatsiavummiut dialect, or Nunatsiavummiutut, also known as Labradorimiutut and called Inuttut by its speakers, is a dialect of the Inuit language...
, spoken in NunatsiavutNunatsiavutNunatsiavut is an autonomous area claimed by the Inuit in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The settlement area includes territory in Labrador extending to the Quebec border. In 2002, the Labrador Inuit Association submitted a proposal for limited autonomy to the government of Newfoundland and...
in northeastern LabradorLabradorLabrador is the distinct, northerly region of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It comprises the mainland portion of the province, separated from the island of Newfoundland by the Strait of Belle Isle...
, is derived from the old Greenlandic system.
Technically, the Kleinschmidt orthography focused upon morphology: the same derivational affix would be written in the same way in different contexts, despite it being pronounced differently in different contexts. The 1973 reform replaced this with a phonological system: Here, there was a clear link from written form to pronunciation, and the same suffix is now written differently in different contexts. The differences are due to phonological changes. It is therefore easy to go from the old orthography to the new (cf. the online converter) whereas going the other direction would require a full lexical analysis.
The alphabet for Greenlandic is: A E F G I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V. To spell loanwords from other languages, especially from Danish and English, the additional letters b, c, d, h, x, y, z, w, æ, ø and å are used. Greenlandic uses the symbols "..." and »...« as quotation marks.
Sample text
"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." (Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human RightsUniversal Declaration of Human RightsThe Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly . The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled...
)
Cited literature
Further reading
- Fortescue, M. D. (1990). From the writings of the Greenlanders = Kalaallit atuakkiaannit. [Fairbanks, Alaska]: University of Alaska Press. ISBN 0912006439
External links
- Greenlandic at Omniglot
- Grønlandsk for voksne/ Greenlandic for Foreigners
- Oqaasileriffik (The Greenland Language Secretariat) (version in English)
- Oqaaserpassualeriffik (Official Site for the Greenlandic Language Technology project including online dictionaries and tools)
- The Bible in Kalaallisut online translation from the Church of Denmark
- Online news in Kalaallisut
- Pulitzer Center Project on Greenlandic preservation
- Maria Bittner web page including papers on Kalaallisut language, also original texts
- http://kalaallisut.uit.no/ — A morphological parser for Kalaallisut (paste text to be analysed)
- Arctic Languages: An Awakening, ed: Dirmid R. F. Collis. ISBN 92-3-102661-5 Available in PDF via the UNESCO website. (chapter with Kalaallisut grammar and another with Inuit grammar)
- OLAC resources in and about the Kalaallisut language
