Details

General

Description and behaviour

This is an old, mostly non-productive, and highly irregular affix. There seems to be suppletion with another (non-productive) morpheme, {ɣaa-} or {ɣai-}, which supposedly is also the source of the iterative mood marker {gaaŋa}, {gaaŋ}, which is formed through combination of this affix with the causative mood marker {ga} (historically dropping /a/ before 3rd person endings {at}, {ata}, where instead today the special 3rd person mood marker {(m)m} is used).

The meaning of this affix is to indicate a habitual/recurrent/repeated action. However today, this meaning is normally conveyed by the regular affix V{ðaq}V instead, of which the present affix seems to be a variant. V{ðarə}V seems to be considered more literary style than V{ðaq}V, so it may in particular be encountered in older texts.

The initial /ð/ may optionally drop following a q-stem, with /q/ then becoming /r/; i.e., the affix may optionally behave as V{garə}V on q-stems. This is presumably due to suppletion with another historic morpheme {ɣaa-}, {ɣai-} in combination with habitual {aʀ-}. Thus with e.g. oqarpoq, it can yield either oqartaraaq (regular) or oqararaaq (irregular).

The affix will appear as the last in the stem, except possibly followed by negation V{ŋŋit}V. In that case, the {ɣai-} form can be used, i.e. yielding /gaiŋŋit/, or the {ðaʀə-} form can be used, yielding /ðarəŋŋit/. Thus:

• oĸaráingilaĸ (new orthography: oqaraanngilaq), appearing as {gai} before V{ŋŋit}V. Compare: oĸartaríngilaĸ (new orthography: oqartarinngilaq), appearing as {(ð)arə}.

Schultz-Lorentzen (1958) also mentions two other, special combinations, where {(ð)arə} seems to have fused with the affixes V{llaq}V and V{naq}V. Here, the affix appears as V{-arə}V with drop of /ð/, and in this case as a truncative affix (as all vowel-initial affixes normally are). Thus, this form is irregular, but the formation itself is regular. Thus:

• V{llaq}V + V{-arə}V ⇒ /llaarə/, new orthography: -llaraaq, old orthography: -tdlaraoĸ
• V{naq}V + V{-arə}V ⇒ /naarə/, new orthography: +naraaq, old orthography -naraoĸ

Due to suppletion and the fact that it is a ə-stem, this affix has several complications w.r.t. inflection sandhi:

• The affix has ə-contractive endings similar to e.g. N{-gə}V and V{-qə}V, i.e. /v/ is deleted from the mood markers {vu}, {va}, {vi} in the indicative and interrogative moods. Thus we get forms like /(ð)arəa/, /(ð)arəunga/, /(ð)arəuq/, /(ð)arəut/ etc.

• In the contemporative mood, and in intransitive participial, and before the intransitive participle, the affix appears as {(ð)arai}, i.e. presumably a combination of {ðaʀ-} or {aʀ-} and {ɣai-}. Furthermore, the contemporative mood marker is {lu}, as with other ə-contractive stems. Thus we get forms like /(ð)arailuŋa/, /(ð)arailuni/, /(ð)araicuŋa/, /(ð)araicuq/ etc.

• In the causative mood, /g/ is nasalised to /ŋ/ in the mood marker {ga}, and with 3rd person endings, where we normally have the special 3rd person marker {(m)m}, we instead simply have {ŋ}. Thus we get the forms /(ð)arəŋama/, /(ð)arəŋavət/ and 3.sg /(ð)arəŋat/ etc., similar to the iterative mood.

Nowadays, all of the above, with the exception of ə-contraction may be used irregularly, or not at all. Hence, e.g. both -taraluni (regular, with ə-contraction) and -taraaluni (irregular, with suppletion) may be encountered. Consider the following examples:

• nâgdliugtaringama (new orthography: naalliuttaringama), with changing {ga} to {ŋa} in the causative mood.
• autdlararaissoĸ (new orthography: aallararaasoq), dropping /ð/ after /q/ and changing to the form /arai/ (suppletion from {aʀ-} + {ɣai-}).
• angalavoĸ oĸalugtuararailune (new orthography angalavoq oqaluttuararaaluni), dropping /ð/ after /q/ and changing to the form /arai/ (suppletion from {aʀ-} + {ɣai-}).

Meanings and examples

References

• [4] C.W. Schultz-Lorentzen (1958): Den Grønlandske Ordbog.
• [8] Christian Berthelsen, Birgitte Jakobsen, Robert Petersen, Inge Kleivan & Jørgen Rischel (1997): Oqaatsit.