Details

General

Description and behaviour

Form and usage:

This is the transitive imperative 3sg/sg ending, formed from the imperative mood marker {Ø}, i.e. the empty morpheme, and the 3sg/sg combined person marker {guk}. This person marker seems to be from an empty Agent marker {Ø}, and the 3sg Patient marker {guk} or {gu}.

Left sandhi:

This ending is truncative, except on q-stems where /qg/ regularly fuse to /r/. This includes t(ə)-stems, where truncativity will trigger the insertion of /ə/, thus e.g. tunniutiguk from tunniuppaa. Furthermore, it has some idiosyncratic sandhi rules:

• When attached to a ə-stem with ə-contractive inflection, this ending may appear as /uk/, whilst also changing /ə/ ⇒ /u/, for ə-stems with ə-contractive inflection endings. Thus for example sianiguuk from {sianigə}V, and paaruuk from {pairə}V. This rule is mandatory according to the inflections described in Schultz-Lorentzen's grammar [8] and earlier grammars, whilst newer grammars such as Nielsen's [11] mark this as optional. If this rule is not used, then the case for /ə/ would be treated as any other vowel stem, cf. below.
• When attached to a vowel stem, /g/ ⇒ /j/. Thus for example asajuk from {asa}V. This also means that in cases where the final vowel sound is [i], this /j/ will not be written, since [ij] is written as just 'i' in the new orthography, and the ending will therefore appear as just 'uk'. If the special rule for /ə/ is not used, then /əguk/ ⇒ /əjuk/ by this rule, and /əjuk/ ⇒ [ijuk] ⇒ 'iuk' by the ə-rule and the ordinary spelling rules.
• The ending may optionally also appear as just /uk/ on u-stems (maybe by influence from the special form on ə-stems with ə-contractive inflection). Thus for example takuuk or takujuk from {taku}V are both used.
• When attached to a t-stem, the combination may optionally yield /tg/ ⇒ /cc/. This is a strange transformation, that does not follow from any of the active sound rules, but it can be observed in some historical combinations, such as the 3pl/3sg combined person marker {accuk} from {at} + {guk}. Thus for example tikissuk or tikiguk from {təkit}V. Both forms are recorded in the inflection tables in Schultz-Lorentzen [8], thus marking this rule as optional. It is likely not commonly used today, so the form tikiguk, with ordinary truncative behaviour, would be preferred.

Besides these general rules, there are also a few stems that have special rules for how this ending is added, especially V{gallaq}V and V{-(g)innaq}V. This is noted in the inflection sandhi section for the respective stems.

Meanings and examples