Details

General

Description and behaviour

Form and usage:

According to Kleinschmidt [10], the meaning of this stem is 'an image/imitation (of some original)'. This then gives rise to a few, more specific meanings: 'his image' (i.e. 'something that resembles him', also 'his double; someone who looks like him'), but also 'portrait', 'map', and 'model (of something)'.

Form and etymology:

According to the Comparative Eskimo Dictionary, the stem derives from a morpheme {atəði}, seemingly with loss of /ə/. Then

• /atəði/ ⇒ /atəci/ ⇒ /atci/,

and /tc/ is then assimilated to /cc/, which is non-standard (usually, /tc/ becomes 'ts'). Thus, to avoid ambiguity, I record the stem as /accək/ rather than /atcək/.

This stem declines with nasalation of /k/, according to [5], which is peculiar, since the final vowel is /i/, rather than /ə/. I have therefore decided to record this stem as /accək/, rather than /accik/.

Variant forms:

Today, some of the possessive forms have become lexicalised, but otherwise, this stem is regarded as archaic. Instead, the stem is often viewed (and declined) like a vowel-stem, i.e. {acci}N, rather than as a k-stem. Some speakers even regard this as a weak q-stem instead, and will therefore say asseq in singular. This form seems to have developed from the vowel-stem form; however, this form is not officially recognised in the Oqaatsit dictionary [16], which only lists the vowel-stem form. The form with a final weak /q/ is also not used for further derivation; only the present form, or the vowel-stem form are (e.g. assigaa, assigiipput), so I do not record the weak-q form as a separate form.

Inflection

Declension pattern:

Meanings and examples