Details

General

Description and behaviour

Form and usage:

The meaning of this stem is 'walrus'. It is/was written auveĸ in the old orthography, but this 'u' seems to be spurious, maybe due to a confusion with {auvəq}N, to which it is not at all related, according to the Comparative Eskimo Dictionary [16]. These authors instead give a reconstructed historic form {ayvəʀ} for the present stem, where the /y/ is reflected as /i/ in the morphemic notation of the present stem.

Inflection sandhi:

The stem declines with metathesis according to Kleinschmidt [9], Schultz-Lorentzen [5] and Ordbogeeraq [12]. There are two variants of this declension: the metathesised consonant cluster /qv/ can be realised as either [χχ] or [ff], i.e. -rr- and -rf-. The first is actually just ə-drop and assimilation of /vq/ to /rr/, the latter is true metathesis. However, the forms with [χχ] may be preferred today; maybe to distinguish this stem from {auvəq}N.

Inflection

Declension pattern:

Notes on declension:

This declension may alternatively be viewed as simply a drop of /ə/, and with assimilation of /vq/ to /rr/, with /q/ weakened to /r/.

Declension pattern:

Notes on declension:

This declension is true metathesis, where /vəq/ becomes /qv/ with drop of /ə/.

Meanings and examples