Details

General

Morphemic form: N{-liqŋucaut(ə)}V
New orthography: -lerngusaapput
Old orthography: -lerngussáuput
Combinations: Click here
Constituents: ?, V{-(cc)ut(ə)}V,
Left sandhi:
Truncative,
Right sandhi:
t(ə) sandhi,
Inflection sandhi:
Default/none,
Stem type: t(ə)-stem
Diathesis: Reflexive
Valency change: None
Valency:
Monovalent,

Description and behaviour

Form and usage:

The meaning of this affix is 'Actors fight (amongst themselves) for/about N'. The meaning is reflexive/reciprocal, so it only makes sense with intransitive endings with a plural subject.

The etymology of this affix is unclear: It appears to be a t(ə)-stem, and given the old-orthography spelling, the final morpheme appears to be V{-(cc)ut(ə)}V, which also matches with the reflexive/reciprocal meaning. However, the source of rest of the affix is unknown. The spelling 'rng' suggests that there may have been metathesis involved, and if so, then this part could derive from /nəq/ or /məq/, but this does not seem to fit well with any other affixes. Furthermore, the affix does not appear in older dictionaries such as Kleinschmidt (1871) or Schultz-Lorentzen (1958), thus suggesting that this is a recent formation, which only makes it more mysterious that there should have been metathesis involved (since that process is normally only active with vowel-initial nominal endings nowadays, not affixes).


Right sandhi:

Right sandhi is inherited from the right-most component, V{-(cc)ut(ə)}V. See this for details.


Inflection sandhi:

Inflection sandhi is inherited from the right-most component, V{-(cc)ut(ə)}V. See this for details.


Meanings and examples

In the sense that 'they fight in order to get N'. Only with intransitive endings with Subject in plural, since the fight/competition is between members of a group.

  • arnalerngusaapput, they fight for/about the women
    [6]

    From arnaq, 'woman'.

  • angutilerngusaapput, they fight for/about the men
    [8]

    From {aŋutə}, 'man'. Note that this is a tə-stem, and the affix joins regularly onto /ə/. Thus this example illustrates that this affix does not cause replacivity (unlike many other l-initial affixes).

  • nerisassalerngusaapput, they fight for/to get the food
    [8]

    From nerisassat (plural), 'food'.

  • saarullilerngusaapput, they fight to get the cod
    [8]

    From saarullik, 'cod'.


References