Details
General
| Morphemic form: | *{aasiit} |
| New orthography: | +aasiit |
| Old orthography: | âsît |
| Combinations: | Click here |
| Left sandhi: | Irregular,
|
Description and behaviour
Form and usage:
This morpheme is not originally an enclitic, but an independent particle. However, it is used as an enclitic today.
Left sandhi:
When added onto a word already ending in [a], one of the [a]s is typically just deleted, rather than injecting an epenthetic consonant to separate the vowels. As is standard with vowel-initial enclitics, the vowel will weaken a preceding consonant in the usual way, by nasalising, or (optionally) in the case of [q], by weakening it to [r]. Thus:
- [a]*{aasiit} ⇒ [aasiit], with elision of the extra [a]
- [p]*{aasiit} ⇒ [maasiit]
- [t]*{aasiit} ⇒ [naasiit]
- [k]*{aasiit} ⇒ [ŋaasiit]
- [q]*{aasiit} ⇒ [Naasiit], spelt 'rngaasiit' or 'q-aasiit', or [raasiit]
Meanings and examples
Or 'how typical of ...' or 'now again'.
- sinipporngaasiit, he slept, as usual
From sinippoq, 'he slept'.
- ukiorporngaasiit, it is winter now again
From ukiorpoq 'it is winter'.
- unaasiit, that's so typical of him
From demonstrative una. Here we see that the extra [a] is simply elided.
References
- [4] C.W. Schultz-Lorentzen (1958): Den Grønlandske Ordbog.
- [8] Christian Berthelsen, Birgitte Jakobsen, Robert Petersen, Inge Kleivan & Jørgen Rischel (1997): Oqaatsit.