Details

General

Description and behaviour

Form and usage:

This particle denotes 'yes'. It is likely the only word in Kalaallisut that ends on /p/ without denoting 'ergative singular'.

According to Kleinschmidt [SK71], it is used to confirm something, i.e. affirming that something indeed is so. This is also important when replying negative questions. Consider the following exchange:

• Q: sininngilatit?, 'did you not sleep?'
• A₁: aap (sininngilanga), 'yes, (I did not sleep)'.
• A₂: naamik (sinippunga), 'no, (I did sleep)'.

In A₁, the speaker answers yes, i.e. confirming, that he in fact did not sleep, whereas in A₂ he answers no, because he in fact did sleep. Negative questions thus work opposite to how we would normally reply in English, where the conventional reply to a question such as 'didn't you sleep?' would be:

• A₁: 'no (I didn't)', if I in fact had not slept; and
• A₂: 'yes (I did)', if I in fact had slept.

Meanings and examples

Search the corpus for further examples.

Tags

• Semantic categorisation / Uncategorised

References

• [MFSJLK10] Michael Fortescue, Steven Jacobson, Lawrence Kaplan (2010): Comparative Eskimo Dictionary (2ED).
• [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.