Exercise 0.8x: Try incorporating alternative sources

Any Greenlandic text that is not too faulty is a possible source of acquisition. It is no doubt good for your motivation to let go of my system from time to time and play a little with other teaching material but be aware. In this early stage of your acqusition process your access to comprehensible input is very limited.

Remember all the time that acquisition primarily takes place when you get the language in proper context and you make sure to understand not only the individual full-form word but also the word’s structure and all the time try to consider your present focus with other endings and other affixes than what you have in front of you. Simple reading and understanding a text chapter after chapter will produce very limited acquisition and thus be a waste of your time. You need much more. But alternative material is undoubtedly good for your motivation so do jump into it but do it the right way.

There are lots of poor texts available so I’ll like to draw your attention to a collection of quality texts in spite of the fact that the scattered pieces of instruction come with Danish as instruction language. The amount of good text books in English is extremely limited so you will have to learn to live with Danish glossing and occasional instruction. At https://oqaasileriffik.gl/en/ you have free access to the most comprehensive dictionary at hand. Go there to look up individual meanings whenever Danish blocks your understanding.

Christian Berthelsen published in 1981 a text book called Kalaallisut sungiusaatit/ Læsestykker i grønlandsk. It was revised and reprinted in 2013 with the title Kalaallisut sungiusaatit 28-t/ 28 læsestykker i grønlandsk. I can warmly recommend it as a break whenever you feel like seeing something that is not LearnGreenlandic’s website

Still, you must return to the system after your “breaks” for you will soon realize that Learn Greenlandic with Per Langgård simply is the only place where you can find an amount of comprehensible input sufficient for you to keep the acquisition process alive.

You will hereunder find a few hints as to how you can exploit Chr. Berthelsen’s great texts in a way that leaves you with real benefit from your efforts.

Here you first get a quote from the start of lesson one 1:

Because of copyright you will only get a short quote here but it is easy to buy the book or get hands on it through the public library. So that is what I’ll suggest you to do.

Ilinniartitsisoq Hans Jensen Danmarkimi nunaqarpoq. Hvidovremi ilinniartitsisuuvoq. Ukioq ataaseq kalaallisut ilinniarpoq. Kalaallisut oqalulaartarpoq. Jensen aasaq manna Kalaallit Nunaannut aallassaaq.

Hans Jensen nuliaqarpoq. Taanna Elsemik ateqarpoq. Else peqqissaasuuvoq. Napparsimmavimmi sulisarpoq.

STEP 1

First you must understand what the text says. At the moment after first chapter in Module II a number of words and part of the grammar is still beyond your comprehension but much of it is already accessible to you. Here is a list of unknown lexicon in the short quote together with the glosses you find in the book:

• nunaqarpoq - he lives
• ataaseq
• oqalulaartarpoq – he talks a little
• aasaq
• manna
• peqqissaasuuvoq – she is a nurse
• napparsimmavimmi – napparsimmavik = hospital

STEP 2

There are a few words you do not know so next step could be that you go to https://oqaasileriffik.gl/en/sprogteknologi/live/ and run the text into the text box and press ‘Analyse Text’

You get lots of information about the words you do not know. Much of it is rather useles for you in this stage of acquisition but try to focus on one important piece of information, namely what stems are hidden in the long words and thereby information about where in the dictionary you can start looking

• nunaqarpoq = "nuna" QAR Der/nv Gram/IV V Ind 3Sg @PRED
• ataaseq = "ataaseq" Num Abs Sg @N<
• oqalulaartarpoq = "oqalup" Gram/IV LAAR Der/vv TAR Der/vv V Ind 3Sg @PRED
• aasaq = "aasaq" N Abs Sg @CL-ADVL>
• manna = "manna" Gram/Dem Pron Abs Sg @N<
• peqqissaasuuvoq ="peqqip" Gram/IV SAR Der/vv Gram/TV HTR Der/vv TUQ Der/vn U Der/nv Gram/IV V Ind 3Sg @PRED
• napparsimmavimmi = "napparsimmavik" N Lok Sg @ADVL>

STEP 3

It is about time to seek assistance from the dictionary so you go to https://oqaasileriffik.gl/en/dict:

• nunaqarpoq is glossed ‘he dwells’, but as you also see that it has ‘country’ as stem. The rest of the pieces of language in nunaqarpoq is familiar stuff so your new knowledge is that you now know that ‘to dwell’ besides the word you know already (najugaqarpoq) also can be nuna-QAR+{verbal ending}. At least when the word combines as it does here with a toponym and you got another example added to your existing knowledge about -QAR’s meaning and usage.
• ataaseq betyder ‘1’ (talord)
• In the verb oqalulaartarpoq you find two familiar parts namely +TAR adding semantics of general/ returning verbal action to the verb and (V Ind 3Sg) = the ending {+vuq}. Still, the stem oqalup and the derivational morpheme -LAAR are still unknown to you. Verbal stems must come with an ending to be useable words. In Greenlandic lexocography tradition it is the inflection (Ind 3Sg) that is picked as the unmarked dictionary form of the verb 2. We must therefore look up oqaluppoq and find the glossing “speak”.

Note the lexicography traditions are quite arbitrary. You will not find “he speaks” as a lexicon entry in an English dictionary where tradition calls for the infinitive, speak. In other languages it can be different. Latin for instance chooses to list verbs with first person singular as entries (amo/I love).

Now to -LAAR. We search in ‘Search Derivational Morphemes’ and get “a little”. You now understand that oqalup-LAAR+TAR+3Sg” means “he speaks a little”. Now to boost your acquisition do not go on until you’ve practiced a bit with the new pieces of information including all the possibilities you can find for using known knowledge with the new pieces of information. You can form verbs like oqalunngilanga (I do not speak), oqalulaarpit? (Do you speak a littel?), oqalulaartartunga (that I speak a little) and dozens of others. And should you get in doubt about whether your word formation is correct (will it be oqalulaartartunga or rather *oqalullaartartunga) you will just check the word you made at https://oqaasileriffik.gl/en/sprogteknologi/live/ where you will find that oqalulaartartunga gives us the expected analysis (oqalup Gram/IV LAAR TAR V Par 1Sg) whereas *oqalullaartartunga produces a question mark because the attempt created something that is not a valid word.

• aasaq has two glossings at https://oqaasileriffik.gl/da/. One means ‘pick-up’ the other ‘summer’. The context clearly tells us that aasaq here means ‘summer’.
• manna is a pronoun meaning ‘this’.
• The verb peqqissaasuuvoq has a very long analysis ("peqqip" Gram/IV SAR Gram/TV HTR TUQ U Gram/IV V Ind 3Sg) including a lot that still is gibberish for your. You might try to look up the stem and find that peqqippoq comes with both ‘recover’ and ‘repeat’ as glosses. That will most likely not help you very much. Still, you find one bit of familiar information in the string, namely (+TUQ -U {vuq} (she is the one, who V). You might now give it a try and look up ‘nurse’. It gives you as expected peqqissaasoq.
• Finally napparsimmavimmi. As you find from the analysis this word, too, contains known information, namely ‘Lok’. You so know that the unknown stem napparsimmavik (hospital) here is in case localis so that napparsimmavimmi means ‘at the hospital’

After these three steps the text ought to be fully understood so that you can start working on the new pieces of information using the strategies that are suited for you.

Among other strategies you could search online for related lexicon attempting to understand what it means in different contexts and understand how and why running text alters the stems in question. You can also create lots of new stems by combining the stems you recently found with morphemes you are familiar with already (but do not forget to check at https://oqaasileriffik.gl/en/sprogteknologi/live/ whether your word formations are correct. It is poor acquisition to learn from one's own misunderstandings!). You could form words like I_want_be_a_nurse (peqqissaasoorusuppunga) or He_would_not_really_want_to_be_a_nurse (peqqissaasoorusunngikkaluarpoq).

If you have Greenlandic friends who do not mind acting as informants for you, you can also make small exercises like "I understand that -LAAR means 'a little' in the word oqalulaartarpoq. Is it then correct to say Aqaguagu sulilaassaanga/ I will work a little the day after tomorrow.

And what about other typers of stems? Can LAAR be used with transitive stems like naapip- and ilinniartip- so that words like naapilaarpara/ I met her a little and ilinniartilaassavassi/ I will teach you a little?

And what about combinations with other morphemes you know already? Is suli+LAAR+TUQ a useable word sulilaartoq/ somebody working a little. Or what about nagations with LAAR? You will here be surprised to learn that the combination LAAR=NNGIT normally gives you a new and different meaning of ‘not at all’, so that sulilaanngilanga is a well-formed word but a word not meaning 'I have not worked a little' but rather 'I have not worked at all'.

Your options are next to never-ending. The only thing you must not do is what most learners do namely to be happy with the fact that you understood the sentence you read and go on to the next sentence or lesson in the material. That is a strategy that leaves almost no acquisition.