Details

General

Morphemic form: N{(q)vasik}V
New orthography: +pasippoq, -rpasippoq
Old orthography: -pasigpoĸ
Sources: [12, 11, 14, 8]
Combinations: Click here
Constituents: N{vaq}V, N{-sik}V,
Variants: N{(q)vasik}N, V{(q)vasik}V,
Left sandhi:
Default,
Right sandhi:
Assibilation (t⇒s),
Inflection sandhi:
Default/none,
Stem type: k-stem
Diathesis: Subjective
Valency:
Monovalent,

Description and behaviour

Form and usage:

This affix has two rather different meanings:

  1. 'Actor lies to the N', or 'lies in the N'th direction' with spatial/directional nouns. This seems to be the primary meaning (in terms of the meanings of the constituents).
  2. 'Actor resembles N'.

It is not clear how the second meaning derives from the former.

Furthermore, according to the Comparative Eskimo Dictionary [16], the affix seems to have been derived from a non-standard combination of two non-productive morphemes, {vaʀ-} and {ðiɣ-}, where the latter normally joins onto noun stems, but the former nevertheless is verbal in nature. It may be that the second meaning, 'resemble' is actually from a different morpheme than {vaʀ-}, but this is unclear from the notes in the Comparative Eskimo Dictionary.


Right sandhi:

Right sandhi is inherited from the right-most component, N{-sik}V. See this for details.


Meanings and examples

Where N represents a direction

  • ilorpasippoq, it is rather far in [14]

    From directional stem {ilu}N, 'inside area'.

  • kippasippoq, it lies to the west [14]

    From directional stem {kət(ə)}N, 'west area'.

  • sinerpasippoq, it stands rather far out on the edge [14]

    From {sinə}N, 'edge (of something).'

  • kangerpasippoq, it lies to the east [11]

    From directional stem {kaŋi}N, 'east area'

  • kujarpasippoq, it lies to the south [11]

    From directional stem {kujat(ə)}N, 'area south'

  • ullorpasitsillugu kimmukarpugut, while it was still (around) noon, we went south [11]

    Literally 'rather far on the day'.

  • qiterpasissoq, something that lies in the middle [12]

    From qiteq, 'middle', and with intransitive participle V{ðuq}N. Here, /ikð/ ⇒ /ikt/ ⇒ /iks/ ⇒ [iss], so this example illustrates that the true /i/ in the stem can cause assibilation.

This meaning is perhaps not as common as the other.

  • anguterpasippoq, it looks like a man [14]
  • inuppasippoq, it resembles a human [14]
  • qallunaarpasippoq, he seems Danish [14]
  • umiarsuarpasippoq, it looks like a ship [11]

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