Details

General

Description and behaviour

This is the verbal future affix. It denotes that the verbal action is future (rather than past/present, which is the default for verbal stems without a special future marking). Thus, e.g. the verb sinippoq on its own can mean either 'he sleeps' (present) or 'he slept' (past), but with this affix added, we get sinissaaq, 'he shall/will sleep' (at some point in the future).

English does not have a verbal inflection for future, so this affix may perhaps best be translated as 'shall Vb' or 'will Vb'. However, note that 'shall' in English also may denote a command or obligation etc., but this is not normally the case with V{ssa}V.

In contrast to English, Greenlandic is a so-called irrealis language: Thus in English, the present and the future have the same form (or with the use of an auxiliary verb like 'shall' or 'will'), whereas the past tense has a different form (e.g. 'sleep' vs. 'slept'). However, in Greenlandic, the situation is the opposite: In Greenlandic, the past and the present have the same form, whereas the future requires the addition of an affix such as V{ssa}V.

There also exists a nominal future affix, N{kcaq}N, which denotes a noun that has not yet come into existence. Although its meaning is related to the meaning of this affix, their origins are actually unrelated. According to the Comparative Eskimo Dictionary:

• V{ssa}V derives from tya-,
• N{kcaq}N derives from kðaʀ.

In the new orthography, these two affixes come to look very alike, i.e. -ssa- vs. -ssaq, which also may have contributed to people perceiving them as alike. However, in the old orthography, the difference was clearer, i.e. '-savoĸ/'-saoĸ vs. -gssaĸ.

Note: Although this affix can be used on stems of any valency, it will always occur after any HTR-morpheme, hence there is no HTR-stem.

This affix has a small inflection sandhi irregularity, i.e. when it is the last morpheme before the ending: In intransitive indicative (and only in this mood!), it removes the single /v/ from the mood marker {vu}, which thus yields {ssa}{vu} ⇒ /ssau/, which then regularly becomes [ssaa] by the a-rule. However, the geminated /(v)v/, occurring with IND.3pl is not affected. Thus, this affix changes five of the six endings in transitive indicative as follows:

In all other moods, including transitive indicative (i.e. mood marker {va}), this affix is completely regular. Thus e.g. with V{vara} (transitive indicative 1.sg/3.sg) we get -ssavara, without any specialities.

It is worth noting that in the old orthography, this affix was sometimes still written with the /v/, and e.g. in the dictionary of Schultz-Lorentzen (1958), this affix is actually listed as '-savoĸ, although he also mentions the form '-saoĸ. However, in the new orthography, only the forms without /v/ are considered correct.

Another notable detail: In North Greenlandic, the dialect spoken in the Ilulissat area and upwards, this affix has a further special sandhi rule: Besides deleting the single /v/ as in standard Kalaallisut, this affix also appears as -ssu-, rather than as -ssa-. Thus, in that dialect, we get forms such as -ssuunga, -ss*uaa, instead of the standard forms -ssaanga, -ssa**vaa etc.

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.