Details

General

Morphemic form: N{(q)luk}N
New orthography: +luk, -rluk
Old orthography: -dluk, -rdluk
Sources:
[9]
[11]
[10]
Combinations: Click here
Left sandhi:
Default,
Right sandhi:
Default/none,
Inflection sandhi:
Default/none,
Stem type: Regular k-stem

Description and behaviour

Form and usage:

This affix is a nominal variant of N{luk}V. It does not seem to be used productively, but it is found in a number of lexicalised words, including many place names. The meaning is sometimes the same as N{luk}V, i.e. 'bad N', but in other cases (especially with some place and animal names), this meaning of 'bad' does not seem to be very clear, or to be absent entirely. In these cases, the affix does not seem to add any particular meaning at all.


Left sandhi:

The affix is normally additive, and injecting (q) on vowel stems. However, there appear to be some irregularly formed words, such as kangerluluk, mentioned in Kleinschmidt [9] and Schultz-Lorentzen [10] , that seem to have been formed by a truncative form of this affix instead, i.e. -luk. It is unclear what may have triggered this, and neither Kleinschmidt nor Schultz-Lorentzen give any hints. However, this behaviour does not seem to be a regularity; consider for example the word nualluk from nuak, where the affiux has joined additively onto the stem as expected. Thus, we shall not attempt to account for this behaviour here.


Inflection

Declension pattern
Declension type: up-declined
Declension sandhi: Default/none

Stem before consonant Stem before vowel Notable forms
New orthography -rluk -rlu
-rluk
-rluup
-rluit
Phonemic orthography (q)luk (q)lu
(q)luk
(q)luup
(q)luit


Meanings and examples

'Bad' could here also be in the sense of 'poor', 'pathetic' etc.

  • silarluk, bad weather
    [10]

    From sila, 'weather'.

  • perluk, accident
    [10]

    From the dummy root {pi}N.

  • kangerluluk, a pathetic fjord
    [10]

    From kangerluk, 'fjord'. Note, this word is irregularly formed, since the affix is joined truncatively onto the stem.