Examples
Meaning
Subject is as Vb'ing (as something)
| Kalaallisut | Translation | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Piitaq ataatamisut angitigaaq | Piitaq is as big as his father | Here the explicit object of comparison is ataata, with EQU.4sg/sg possessive ending N{misut}, 'his (own) N'.The verb stem is {aŋə}V, 'Actor is big'. |
| Piitaq qanoq angitigaa? | how big is Piitaq? | With interrogative 3sg ending V{va}. Schwa-contraction deletes the single /v/ from the ending, thus yielding angitigaa. |
| ima angitigaaq | he is as tall as this | where this e.g. may be indicated with the hands. |
| paasisinnaanngilaat sooq uanga taamak ungasitsigisumut aallarusuppunga | they couldn't understand why I wanted to travel to something as distant as that | This is a longer example. The word containing V{təgə}V is ungasitsigisumut, built from {uŋasik}V{təgə}V{ðuq}N{mut}. The base is {uŋasik}V, 'is distant/far away' followed by V{təgə}V, and then intransitive participle V{ðuq}N, thus yielding a noun meaning 'something as distant (as that)' where 'as that' is expressed by the anaphoric demonstrative taamak, referring to a previously described place (the example is taken from Per Langgård's 'Grønlandsk for Voksne'). |
| miilitut ungasissigaaq | it is one mile away | Literally: 'it is as distant as 1 mile'. This example uses {uŋasik}V as the previous example, but here we see that {uŋasik}V also can assibilate the /t/ to /s/ by the t-to-s rule (the example is taken from Schultz-Lorentzen (1958)). |
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