Details

General

Morphemic form: V{nəqcarə}V
New orthography: +nersaraat
Old orthography: -nerssarât
Combinations: Click here
Constituents: V{nəq}N, N{caq}N, N{-gə}V,
Left sandhi:
Default,
ə-eliding,
Right sandhi:
Default/none,
Inflection sandhi:
ə-contraction,
Stem type: ə-stem
Diathesis: Reflexive
Valency change: Increasing
Valency:
Divalent,
HTR morpheme:
nnək,
HTR stem: nəqcarənnək,

Description and behaviour

Form and usage:

This affix a verbal form of superlative V{nəqcaq}N, created with N{-gə}V. The meaning is 'Patient is the most Vb'ing of the Agents'. It is similar to using V{nəqcaq}N with possessive endings, except that this affix yields a full verbal clause, rather than a possessive noun phrase. Thus, this affix is comparable to the verbalisation of the superlative V{nəqpaaq}N with N{-u}V, i.e. V{nəqpau}V, except that those two affixes are used for creating modifiers for nouns, and verbal clauses with a subject predicate (i.e. 'the biggest house' and 'it is the biggest house'), whereas V{nəqcaq}N and V{nəqcarə}V are used for partitive superlative constructions (i.e. 'the biggest of them' and 'it is the biggest of them').


Left sandhi:

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


Right sandhi:

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


Inflection sandhi:

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


Meanings and examples

  • Piitaq annersaraat, Piitaq is the biggest of them

    Piitaq is the explicit Object which is mapped to the Patient role. Literally 'they have Piitaq as their biggest'.

  • Nuuk illoqarfiit annersaraat, Nuuk is the biggest of the towns

    Nuuk is the explicit Object, which is mapped to the Patient role, whilst illoqarfiit, 'the towns' is the Subject and is mapped to the Agentrole. Thus literally: 'the towns have Nuuk as their biggest'. Note the reversed word order, with Object before Subject: this is not uncommon in constructions with N{-gə}V. The example could also be expanded further, e.g. Nuuk Kalaallit Nunaata illoqarfiisa annersaraat, which has the whole possessive noun phrase Kalaallit Nunaata illoqarfiisa, 'the towns of Greenland', as Subject.


References