There is nothing extraordinary about plural in Greenlandic. Just learn the endings and it functions as in English. But you will need the most abstract of all sound rules in this chapter. So welcome to the story of schwa (ә)
Always remember the correct learning sequence: First you perceive real language and only afterwards you try to produce your own variety of Greenlandic. This is true also for acquiring new words and endings. Start from the Greenlandic section and speak out the new stuff aloud and get as much of the meanings as you can. Later, you may try the productive process, namely whenever you think of an English meaning wondering what that could be in Greenlandic.
Please, observe that from this chapter on all nouns that follow the up-declension are presented in both absolutive case as well as relative case singular. Study them carefully so that you will remember that the word in question inflects according to the up-paradigms and furthermore that you will learn whether a given noun belong to the subgroup of truncating {up} and {it} or the subgroup of additive endings.
aallar- to departure
atuakkialerineq, +up literature
atuar- to read
*eqqaq area close to POSSESSOR
ilinniarnertooq a student
immiussi- to record (audio/ video)
inuk, -up a human/ a man
*kit - *kitә area West of POSSESSOR
mittarfik, -up an airport
Pituffik, -up Thule Air Base
qaammat (qaammatә) a month
qanga when (about the past)
qangali long ago
qatanngut (qataŋŋutә) a sibling
siulleq, -up the first
taamaammat therefore
taava then
tamatta we all
N{-kka} noun in absolutive plural "owned" by 1.Sg: "mine more than one"
Vb{+(l)lugit} transitive contemporative with object in 3.Pl "Vb-ing them"
Vb{+vai} indicative 3.Sg-3.Pl "he-them"
Pronoun{+nani} plural pronoun in locative case: "in these/ those etc."
Vb+GIARTUR to go to Vb; to Vb more and more
N-NNGUAQ a little (cute) N1
Vb-LIR to start Vb
Vb+TUQ one who Vb
TERMINALIS-KAR to go to N
Uanga Per Rosingimik ateqarpunga. Per ikinngutigivara ukiorpassuarni ikinngutigisimallugu. Per ulluni makkunani aallarsimavoq nammineq immiussiartorsinnaanani. Taamaammat uanga Per sinnerlugu oqaluttuarisaanera atuassavara. Piareerpisi?
*****
Hej, Periuna. Tutsiuteqqippunga.
Tika immikkoortumi kingullermi meeqqakka pillugit oqaluttualaarpoq. Qatanngutikkali taanngilai.
Marlunnik qatannguteqarpunga. Tamarmik angutaapput. 67-inik ukiulimmik angajoqarpunga 45-nillu ukiulimmik nukaqarlunga. Tamatta Jyllandimi inunngorpugut nukarali kisimi suli Jyllandimi najugaqarpoq. Esbjergip eqqaani najugaqarpoq. Angajora qangali Københavnimut nuuppoq. Ukiorpassuarni Københavnip kitaani, Brøndbymi, najugaqarpoq.
Uanga 1968-imi ilinniarnertuunngorpunga. Taava Odensemut nuuppunga atuakkialerinermik ilinnialerlunga.
1970-imili Kalaallit Nunaannukarpunga. Siullermik Nuummukarpunga qaammatinilu sisamaannarni Nuummiillunga. Taava amerikarmiut mittarfiannut, Pituffimmut, Avanersuarmukarpunga. Taamani inuit Pituffimmiittut tamarmik angutaapput. Amerikarmiuinnaat qallunaallu. Kalaaleqanngilaq.
Most study books on Greenlandic L2 present the negation in a pretty straight forward fashion as: -nngilaq.
To prevent problems in the lessons to come we will do it in a seemingly more complicated way. You will have to learn the fact that negation in Greenlandic is taken care of by the derivational morpheme Vb-NNGIT and you will have to accept a special feature, namely that indicative {+vu} and {+va} are replaced by {-la} when preceded by -NNGIT - but observe that the rule works only when immediately preceded by -NNGIT.
Of course, this long byway is not included to irritate you and complicate your learning. We do it this way to avoid scores of problems in the near future. It is namely a fact that in normal language negation has a shape with -la- in only 20% of all occurrences. In the vast majority of occurrences -NNGIT is followed by derivational material or endings that are not indicative. Therefore, it is important that you avoid connecting the meaning 'not' with the word form -la- in your head. Here are a few examples:
1 ator-NNGIT{+vaat} atunngilaat they did not use it
2 ator-NNGIT+GALUAR{+vaat} atunngikkaluarpaat they did not use it (but)
3 suli-NNGIT+NIQ sulinnginneq time off
4 suli-NNGIT{+Tuŋa} sulinngitsunga that I did not work
The examples ought to illustrate two things. Firstly, that the morpheme is -NNGIT and nothing but -NNGIT and secondly that the morpheme's final sound is a consonant and not an /i/ as one could be lead to believe in the early stage of learning when all one knows is indicative with its -la- that truncates the last consonant. But it is there! And of course varies according to neighboring consonants as all consonants do in Greenlandic.
We have already used the verbal stem pi- in the contemporative mood with different personal endings. They are namely among the most frequent of all words in Greenlandic so you need to understand the construction well.
In chapter 2 we translated the transitive verb pi- as 'to refer to it/ about OBJECT'. But there is much more to it than this one use. The huge number of derivational and inflectional processes in Greenlandic includes the fact that rather much meaning cannot be expressed without the morphemes. So very often we are in need of means to express only the semantic contents in derivational morphemes and/ or endings free of a noun or verb. For exactly this purpose we have two dummies pi and su. pi can be a noun in its own right meaning 'thing/ stuff' but more often it is used as a dummy in all the places we normally write Vb-... Also su is a dummy with about the same qualities as pi- but whereas pi- is neutral su- is used in questions. Here we bring quite a number of examples on the use of pi and su.
First with derivational morphemes:
pi+GӘ{+vaat} pigivaat they own it
pi-LAAR{+vuŋa} pilaarpunga I "intransitive" a little for instance 'I got a little' or 'I did a little'
pi-LIK pilik sby having sth/ a rich person
su-QAR{+vugut} soqarpugut? What do we have?
su-LIRI{+vit} sulerivit? What do you deal with?
And with endings:
su{+viuk} suiuk? What did you do with it?
su-SSA{+vavut} sussavavut? What do we do with them?
su{-mut} sumut To where?
pi{+(l)luni} pilluni he "intransitive-ing" 'doing'
pi{+(l)lugu} pillugu "transitive-ing" him 'about him'
Foreigners often have major problems dealing with space and directions in Greenlandic. That is to a large degree all the times we have prepositions like 'in' 'over', or 'under'.
It is as a matter of facts not so horribly difficult once one grasps the fact that Greenlandic does know prepositions in the first place but expresses space and directions by means of noun with a spatial meaning. Take 'over' and 'under' as examples. Instead of the prepositions we have nouns meanings 'room-over' and 'room-under'.
So if something is 'under me' it is 'in my room-under' and if somebody carries stuff up to the premises above us, they put stuff 'into our room-over'. We have quite a number of such spatial nouns with meanings like 'room-outside', 'West-room', 'close-on-room', etc.
Imagine a table under which a box takes all the space under the table. That box is exactly the 'room-under' box - in Greenlandic *atә. Now, imagine another box on the table. This box fills all space between the table top and the ceiling. That is the 'room-over' box, in Greenlandic *qulә. Now, everything with over/ under semantics should be simple (a table is nerrivik/ nerriviup in Greenlandic):
The chairs under the table are, of course, in the table's *atә that is {atә-a+ni} = /ataani/ = nerriviup ataani and when we push them under the table, we push them into the table's *atә that is {atә-a+nut} = /ataanut/ = nerriviup ataanut. And after dinner we will remember to turn out the light over the table {qulә-a+ni} = /qulaani/ = nerriviup qulaani.
In today's lesson you saw two such spatial nouns namely *kitә og *eqqaq. *kitә means West-room. Brøndby is a suburb West of Copenhagen so one of course finds Brøndby in Copenhagen's West-room ({kitә-a+ni} ⟹ /kitaani/ ⟹ Københavnip kitaani). And whenever I visited my late brother, I would drive into Copenhagen's *kitә ({kitә-a+nut} ⟹ /kitaanut/ ⟹ Københavnip kitaanut using the terminal case.
Relative case serves two functions in Greenlandic. It is (i) the possessor's case and (ii) the case where to put the subject for a transitive verb. Note that this is consequently so. Hence Tikap (relative case) nuliara nalunngilaa 'Tika knows my wife' is well-formed since nuliara is neither possessor nor subject for the transitive verb. But you cannot use nuliara to form sentences like 'My wife's flat' or 'My wife loves me'2.
You make relative case singular by adding N{-p} to p-stems and N{±up} to up-stems.
Plural is made by the ending N{-t} to p-stems and the ending N{±it} to up-stems in both absolutive and relative case. Hence angutit means both 'the men' and 'the mens''.
Vb+GIARTUR behaves by and large as we expect it to behave:
/g/ fuses with preceding /r/ according to the general rule as in {ilinniar+giartur+vuŋa} ilinniariartorpunga 'I go to study' or {atur+giartur+vara} atoriartorpara 'I use it more and more'.
/g/ doubles the preceding consonant according to C1C2 ⟹ C2C2. and the two /g/-s become unvoiced as do all long /v/, long /l/, long /g/, and long /r/. You saw both these rules in module I so they ought to be familiar by now. {tutsiutiqqip+giartur+vugut} tutsiuteqqikkiartorpugut 'we came to let hear from us again' and {ilinniartip+giartur-SSA+vassi} ilinniartikkiartussavassi 'I will go and teach you'.
But after vowel /i/ Vb+GIARTUR is always reduced to /..artur../. That is why {immiussi+GIARTUR+SINNAA+vuq} comes out as immiussiartorsinnaavoq 'he was able to go and do the recording'.
The ending for 3. plural in intransitive indicative was given above as Vb{+(v)vut}. The parenthesis (v) indicates that there always must be a long consonant before {vut}. Verbs ending in a consonant meet themselves this demand as in nuup- and meeraqar- (nuupput 'they moved' and meeraqarput 'they have children') but with stems in vowel an extra consonant must be put. That is why 'they are men' is angutaapput from {aŋutә-U+(v)vut} ⟹ /aŋutauvvut/ ⟹ angutaapput.
You most likely wondered why the instrumental case was used in the sentence in today text ..atuakkialerinermik ilinnialerlunga 'me beginning the study of literature'. 'literature' is after all the object for 'study' so why not a transitive verb with atuakkialerineq as object in Greenlandic?
The answer lies in an entirely different area, namely in the notion of definiteness. In English definiteness is a grammatical category t.i. in our English heads we always carry information about a word's definite or indefinite status with us ('house' is not really a useful word without either 'a house' or 'the house'). In Greenlandic definiteness is not a category so illu means 'house' as well as 'a house' as well as 'the house'.
Of course Greenlandic needs to be able to handle the difference between the three forms even though it does not have a specific category for the purpose. The most common way to handle it - and the only thing you as a learner needs to know about the question for a long time - is the fact that an object for a transitive verb always is definite whereas nouns incorporated in verbs or object-like constructions in the instrumental case with intransitive verbs are indefinite. Hence
illu pigivaat 'They own THE house'
illoqarput 'They have A house'
illumik pisissapput 'They will buy A house'
1As with N+SUAQ in chapter II-2 N-NNGUAQ, too, has two different base forms according to context. Before endings in vowel and a few derivational morphemes (N-U being the most prominent) the up-stem N-NNGUK is used. In all other situations one uses the p-stem N-NNGUAQ.
2You will need the relative case marker for Sg possessed by 1.Sg {-ma} to form such sentences.