Details

General

Morphemic form: N{tciaŋŋuaq}N
New orthography: -tsiannguaq
Old orthography: -tsiánguaĸ
Combinations: Click here
Constituents: N{tciaq}N, N{ŋŋuaq}N,
Variants: N{tciaqcuaq}N,
Left sandhi:
Default,
Right sandhi:
/aq/ drop,
Inflection sandhi:
Default/none,
Stem type: Weak q-stem

Description and behaviour

Form and usage:

The meaning of this affix is 'a good N'. It is a combination of N{tciaq}N, 'fair-sized', and N{ŋŋuaq}N, '(cute) small'; the latter presumably in a sense of emphasis here. There is also a variant with a similar meaning built from N{(q)cuaq}N, see N{tciaqcuaq}N.


Left sandhi:

Left sandhi is inherited from the left-most component, N{tciaq}N. See this for details.


Right sandhi:

Right sandhi is inherited from the right-most component, N{ŋŋuaq}N. See this for details.


Inflection sandhi:

Inflection sandhi is inherited from the right-most component, N{ŋŋuaq}N. See this for details.


Meanings and examples

Schultz-Lorentzen (1958) describes it as 'a not entirely bad N'. However, from the examples in DAKA the meaning seems to be synonymous with the variant N{ttiaqcuaq}N.

  • angutitsiannguaq, a handsome man
    [8]

  • illutsiannguaq, a nice house
    [8]

  • immutsiannguaq, the lovely milk
    [8]

  • orsutsiannguaq, a delicious piece of blubber
    [8]

  • savitsiannguaq, a usable knife
    [4]

  • qiorfissatsiannguaq qissugiinnaleqaa, now he goes and uses that nice piece of wood, that should be used as a cutting board, for fuel
    [4]

    Directly translated: 'now he just uses-for-fuel the nice-future-cutting board.' The base of qiorfissatsiannguaq is qiorfik, 'cutting board', followed by the future nominal affix N{kcaq}N and N{tciaŋŋuaq}N. The verb is qisugaa, 'he uses it for fuel', followed by V{-(g)innaq}V, 'just', V{-liq}V, 'begin to' and V{-qə}V 'greatly', which here seems to be used in a sense of 'narrative vividness'.


References