Details

General

Description and behaviour

Form and usage:

The meaning of this stem is 'sleeve'.

The stem displays a seemingly irregular inflection pattern: aaq in singular, but atsip in plural. This can be understood by considering the (reconstructed) historical form, as given in the Comparative Eskimo Dictionary [22], which is {aðiʀ}. It appears that this /ð/ has dropped at some point, thus leaving /aiq/, which by the ordinary sound rules becomes [aaq]. However, it appears that a reflex of this /ð/ resurfaces during inflection, where it geminates to /tc/, spelt 'ts', and since this consonant now separates the /a/ and the /i/, the latter is no longer assimilated, so it appears as [i]. Thus, we get the get the pattern aaq, atsit.

In the present dictionary, we record this injected consonant as (s) in the morphemic form. This is partly an arbitrary choice. Given that the consonant historically was /ð/, we could also have recorded the form as /a(ð)iq/. However, /ð/ does not geminate in Kalaallisut, so this would have required us to assume an extra gemination rule just for this case. Furthermore, dropped, resurfacing, historical /ð/ normally becomes a fricative, often /j/ or /g/. We choose /s/ here, because according to the Comparative Eskimo Dictionary [22], this is the sound /ð/ appears to have taken in some of the related languages (West and North Canadian Inuktitut), and /s/ may also geminate to /tc/ in Kalaallisut. However, it should be noted that this is somewhat arbitrary, and other choices could have been made here w.r.t. what this consonant should be (e.g. either /j/ or /t/).

At the phoneme level we thus get:

• {a(s)iq}N + N{Ø} ⇒ /aiq/ ⇒ [aaq] in singular.
• {a(s)iq}N + N{t} ⇒ /asit/ ⇒ /atcit/ in plural.

The chosen form thus makes the behaviour of this stem regular. However, we should note that this is regularity is partly artificially induced. Historically, this cannot be the whole explanation. When Kleinschmidt created the old orthography, the a-rule had not yet (fully) come into effect, so vowels were not written as assimilated following [a]. However, even in the old orthography, the present stem was already spelt âĸ in singular, cf. Kleinschmidt's dictionary [14], but still atsit in plural. Thus, it seems that this historical /i/ was already assimilated in the time of Kleinschmidt (i.e. 1871).

Going even further back, Egede (1750) [12] also spelt this stem as ak, dual aitſik, so even here, the /i/ was not distinguished in the singular form. However, Fabricius (1804) [13] actually did distinguish it, as he wrote aëk besides ak for the singular form (and aitſik for the dual form, like Egede). Presumably, this 'ë' reflects the historical /i/, but given that Fabricius wrote 50 years after Egede, it is unclear whether this was something he actually could hear, or whether this spelling reflects an etymological reasoning. Note that neither Egede nor Fabricius distinguished /q/ from /k/, nor did they consistently distinguish long and short vowels.

Right sandhi:

According to Kleinschmidt [14], this stem may drop its final /aq/ before vowel-initial endings. He gives the inflection examples aa, ai with the absolutive 3sg/sg and 3sg/pl endings N{-a} and N{-i}. It is unclear whether this is also used nowadays.

Inflection sandhi:

The stem contains a dropped consonant, here written as (s), which resurfaces during inflection, when it geminates to /tc/.

Inflection

Declension pattern:

Notes on declension:

This inflection shows gemination of the dropped (s) to /tc/. Note that the choice of /s/ for the dropped consonant is somewhat arbitrary.

Following Kleinschmidt [14], we also record the vowel-stem form here as a-, thus indicating that that the stem also displays /aq/ drop before vowel-initial endings.

Meanings and examples

Tags

• Thematic grouping / Clothing