Details

General

Morphemic form: {pugnəq}N
New orthography: punneq, punnerit
Old orthography: púneĸ, púnerit
Sources: [MFSJLK10], [SK71], [JP67], [CWSL51], [CWSL58], [CBBJRPIKJR97]
Combinations: View list
Constituents: {?} + V{nəq}N
Right sandhi: Default/none
Inflection sandhi: Strong stem, Weakening, up-declined
Stem type: q-stem

Description and behaviour

Form and usage:

The meaning of this stem is 'butter'. According to Kleinschmidt [SK71], it was originally used in a different sense, 'ambergris', and the word then later came to be used in the sense of 'butter'. However, this meaning is not mentioned in any of the later dictionaries [CWSL58], [CBBJRPIKJR97].

Etymology
According to the Comparative Eskimo Dictionary [MFSJLK10], the word derives from a verbal stem {pugə-}, which is also the root of {puə}V, here probably in the sense of 'float to the surface'. The second component is (the historical ancestor of) V{nəq}N with elision of /ə/, thus giving the form /pugnəq/. However, we do not record {puə}V as the first component here, because the stem-internal /g/ is not present in that stem; it had already dropped when the present stem was formed.


Right sandhi:

Vowel-initial affixes will likely join onto this stem with weakening, similar to V{nəq}N.


Inflection

Inflection pattern:

Stem type: q-stem
Inflection sandhi: Strong stem, Weakening, up-declined
Sources: [JP67]

Stem before consonant Stem before vowel Notable forms
New orthography punner punner punneq, punnerup, punnerit
Old orthography púner púner púneĸ, púnerup, púnerit
Phonemic orthography nəq nər pugnəq, pugnərup, pugnərit

Notes on inflection:

Nowadays, the stem normally declines with weakening of /q/ to /r/ before any vowel-initial endings.


Meanings and examples

Tags: Food


Search the corpus for further examples.


Tags

References