Details

General

Description and behaviour

Form and usage:

This stem can be used either transitively or intransitively, although intransitive usage is the most common nowadays:

• Intransitive usage: 'the sun is shining; it is sunshine'. This usage is impersonal, with no explicit subject, so it can only be used with a 3sg (or 4sg) ending.
• Transitive usage: 'the sun is shining on Patient'. This usage is described in Kleinschmidt [SK71] and Schultz-Lorentzen [CWSL58]. Note that there is no Agent in the meaning, so there cannot be an explicit subject (in a sense, it is 'the weather' or 'the sun' itself that is shining on the Patient). Thus, the Agent will always only be bound by an impersonal 3sg (or 4sg) person in the ending.

Due to this peculiar usage, we describe it as agentive, since the Patient role can be dropped without the use of a HTR-morpheme, but the valencies of these meaning are either monovalent or avalent.

Historically, this stem is clearly related to {siqinəq}N, 'the sun', but exactly how is not clear. The Comparative Eskimo Dictionary [MFSJLK10] briefly mentions this stem under the entry for {ciqinəʀ}, but does not explain its construction. However, it seems clear that {siqinəq}N is itself built from some historical, verbal stem {ciqi-}, followed by V{nəq}N, but that stem does not exist independently in Kalaallisut. Thus, we record it here as unknown.

According to Ordbogeeraq, the present stem may assibilate a following /t/ to an /s/. This shows that the final vowel in the stem is a true /i/. I therefore hypothesise that the second morpheme then is V{(n)niq}V, denoting something that is good or enjoyable. This yields the present form, and it is also consistent with the behaviour of that affix, which also may assibilate a following /t/ to /s/.

Right sandhi:

Right sandhi is inherited from the right-most component, V{(n)niq}V. See this for details.

Meanings and examples

Search the corpus for further examples.

Tags

• Semantic categorisation / Verbal bases / Weather

References

• [SK71] Samuel Kleinschmidt (1871): Den grønlandske Ordbog.
• [CWSL58] C.W. Schultz-Lorentzen (1958): Den Grønlandske Ordbog.
• [JP67] Jonathan Petersen (1967): Ordbogêraĸ.
• [CBBJRPIKJR97] Christian Berthelsen, Birgitte Jakobsen, Robert Petersen, Inge Kleivan & Jørgen Rischel (1997): Oqaatsit.
• [MFSJLK10] Michael Fortescue, Steven Jacobson, Lawrence Kaplan (2010): Comparative Eskimo Dictionary (2ED).