Details

General

Description and behaviour

Form and usage:

The meaning of this stem is 'raven'. According to the Comparative Eskimo Dictionary [21], the reconstructed historical form is {tulukaʀ}, and the /k/ is reflected in the modern-day form as /g/. The most common spelling today is tulugaq, but note that in older dictionaries and grammars using the old orthography, especially Kleinschmidt [13] and Schultz-Lorentzen [16, 8], it was usually spelt with a 'v' instead, i.e. tuluvaĸ (Kleinschmidt calls the spelling with g 'provincial'). This 'v' nevertheless still geminates to [kk], spelt 'vk', thus revealing that the underlying phoneme in fact is /g/. This pattern is seen in a number of stems, cf. e.g. {iqalugaq}N, {qilalugaq}N and {uugaq}N.

Inflection sandhi:

The stem has regular gemination of /g/ to [kk]. Even in the old orthography, where this was spelt tuluvaĸ, the stem still had gemination of this /v/ to [kk], spelt 'vk', thus revealing that this phoneme in fact is a /g/. This pattern was apparently standard for stems ending in -vaĸ, according to Schultz-Lorentzen [8].

Inflection

Declension pattern:

Notes on declension:

We include the old orthography declension with '-vaĸ' ⇒ '-vka', although the spelling nowadays is most commonly with '-gaq'.

Meanings and examples