Lecture II-6.1: Lots of new words but hardly any new grammar

Chapter II-6

Lots of new words but hardly any new grammar

  • This chapter is first and foremost a question about reinforcing the grammar you know already but with quite a load of new lexical material

Words

aasaq a summer

akueri- (akuirә) to accept it

alla another/ a stranger

angajoqqaaq a parent

assut much

atassut (atassutә) a connection

avip- to divorce

erniinnaq soon

fiister- to party

guitarer- to play guitar

ikiorti (ikiurtә) an assistant

illoqarfik/ illoqarfiup a city

imatut således

imer- to drink

immaqa maybe

inersimasoq an adult

ingerla- to move/ to run (a case or an engine)

inuttassarsiuussineq/ inuttassarsiuussinerup a posting

inuu- to live

inuusuttoq a young

kapitali a chapter

*nalә a direction/ level/ time (only with possessor)

nangip- to continue it

nassiussaq a shipment

nipilersor- to play music

oqaluttuari- (uqaluttuarә) to tell it

panik/ paniup a daughter

pissut (pissutә) a reason

qaangiup- (qaaŋiutә) to have passed by t.i. 'TIME ago'

qimap- to leave him

sooq why

soorunami of course

soqutiginar- to be interesting

suliaq a piece of work/ a job

suna what

sungiup- (suŋiutә) to get used to it

taakku those (already mentioned)

taama so. With Vb+TIGӘ 'as Vb as so'

taamaap- to be so

taamaatip- to give up

taku- to see it

tamanna this (already mentioned)

tikip- to arrive to it

tusar- to hear it

uani here

upernaaq a spring

ungasip- to be far away

Endings

N{-ma} noun in relative Pl. "owned" by 1.Sg: "my N-s'"

N{-kkut} noun in vialis (prosecutive) Sg.: "via N"

Vb{+lara} verb in optative 1.Sg-3.Sg: "Wish I-him"

Vb{+gatta} intransitive causative 1.Pl: "as we"

Vb{+(m)mat} intransitive causative 3.Sg: "as he"

Vb{+(m)mata} intransitive causative 3.Pl: "as they"

Vb{+vat} indicative 2.Sg-3.Sg: "you-him"

Derivational morphemes

N-KKUT the collective N, family N (NB plural)

N+SIUR to seek N, to go about N

N+TAAR to get a (new) N

Vb+GUNNAAR to stop Vb

Vb+GUSUP to want to Vb

Vb+(L)LUAR to Vb well

Vb+TIGӘ so Vb as ..

Vb-VIP to Vb much/ strongly

Clitics

LUUNNIIT or. With negation 'not even'

Listen/ understand/ repeat II-6

Hej. Per Rosingiuna. Tutsiuteqqippunga. Per suli Finlandimiilluni nammineq immiussiartorsinnaanngimmat uanga ullumi oqaluttuarisaanera nangilaassavara. Imatut oqaluttuarpoq:

Immaqa eqqaamavat uanga ukiorpassuit qaangiummata Odense Universitet qimallugu Kalaallit Nunaannukartunga. Tikap tamanna kapitali 3-mi oqaluttuarivaa. Oqaluttuarinngilaali suna pissutigalugu aallartunga. Uani tikilaarlara.

Taamani anaanaga ataatagalu tamarmik suli inuupput. Ataataga 57-inik ukioqarpoq Odensemi najugaqarluni. Anaanaga 49-inik ukioqarpoq. Taanna suli Esbjergimi najugaqarpoq. Meeraagamali angajoqqaakka avipput.

Uagut ilaqutariit Kalaallit Nunaannut atassuteqavinnginnatta angajoqqaama soorunami paasisinnaanngilaat sooq uanga taama ungasitsigisumut aallarusunnersunga. 20-innarnilli ukioqarama taakku isumaat inersimasulluunniit allat isumaat tusarusunngilakka. Aallarusukkama aallaannarpunga.

Eqqaamaviuk Odensip ilisimatusarfiani danskimik ilinniartunga. Immaqaluunniit ilinniassagaluarpunga. Ukiut taakku tassa the Beatles-ikkut, Doorsikkut Bob Dylanillu nalaat. Inuusuttut assut fiistertarput, assut nipilersortarlutik assullu imertarlutik. Uangalu taamaappunga. Imerluartarlungalu guitarerluartarpunga ilinniarluartanngilangali. Kiisalu 1969-imi upernaakkut ilisimatusarfimmi taamaatippunga.

Ilinniarunnaarama ingerlaannarlunga suliffittaarpunga. Paul Lehmannimi Odensemiittumi speditøritut sulilerpunga. Esbjergimi meeraagamali nassiussalerineq speditørillu suliassaat sungiunnikuuakka Paul Lehmannimi Esbjergimiittumi meeqqat atuarfiannili ilinniarnertuunngorniarfimmilu ikiortaasarama.

Decembarimi inuttassarsiuussineq soqutiginarpallaartoq takuara. KGH speditørissarsiorpoq Pituffimmi 1970-imi aasakkut qaammatini marlunni sulisussamik.

Qinnuteqarama akuerineqarpunga erniinnarlu Kalaallit Nunaannut aallarlunga.

An unimportant (annoying) sound rule

There is a vanishing sound rule that changes t to s when preceded by an i or an i and a consonant. That is the reason why you in today's text find the word aallarusunnersunga from aallar+GUSUP+NIR+Tuŋa. You expected aallarusunnertunga because you know your T-rules that say that Tt whenever precede by a consonant (and only turns s if precede by a vowel).

Stick close to that knowledge for not a soul will misunderstand aallarusunnertunga. As a matter of facts lots of Greenlanders do say so themselves - especially in the young language.

The old vanishing rule goes:

t ⇒ s / i(C) ___

It states that t turns into s after an i maybe having a consonant between.

aallar+GUSUP+NIR+Tuŋa will accordingly first become /aallarusunnirtuŋa/ (rg always fuse into one and only one r; pn become nn following the C1C2-rule; T becomes t because T is precede by a consonant r).

Only secondly /aallarusunnirtuŋa/ will become /aallarusunnirsuŋa/ because of the new rule and be spelled aallarusunnersunga.

This is very complicated and the question is even further complicated by the fact that no one any longer can tell the difference between real /i/ and /ә/ that became i before a consonant. It used namely to be so that only real /i/ would trigger the rule whereas schwas would not even when they had the shape of /i/. That is the reason why we have seemingly inconsistencies like

inә+TAAR+vuq (he got a room) initaarpoq (/t/ is precede by schwa. No /s/), but

panik+TAAR+vuq (he got a daughter) panissaarpoq (/t/ preceded by /i/. /t/ turns /s/)

The bottom line is that lots of Greenlanders have heavy problems with this dying rule, so please do not invest your learning energy into it. Avoid trying to use it productively but limit yourself to using it for receptive purposes. If you learn to understand words in spite of expected /t/-s turning /s/-s you definitely will be home safe.

Demonstrative particles

Until now you have seen some particles such as taanna/ taakku and tamanna/ tamakku with semantics like "real" nouns and functionality like nouns t.i. they can take any case and they can be subject and object. They are the real pronouns.

Demonstrative pronouns differ from normal nouns in a number of respects. They do not form relative case using well-known {-p} or {±up} and they have different shapes in the plural absolutive and relative.

Here are the wordforms of the two pronouns you have seen until now


absolutive singular

relative singular

absolutive plural

relative plural1

'this mentioned'

taanna

taassuma

taakku

taakku/taakkua

'this touchable'

tamanna

tamatuma

tamakku

tamakku/tamakkua

In this chapter you also see uani ('here') which is a demonstrative adverb. Demonstrative adverbs have a much more restricted use with only 4 wordforms (here, from here, to here, through here). Greenlandic has a total of 12 demonstrative roots. They will not be dealt with in this course so you will have to address a grammar book if you want to have a broader view of them all.

Vialis (prosecutive) with words meaning 'time'

Vialis basically means 'through N' or 'via N' but with words with time semantics vialis is used to tell the recurrent time (aasakkut 'in summer', ullaakkut 'in the morning' etc.) and with composite time expressions we use vialis to specify the time (1949-mi upernaakkut 'in the spring of 1949', ippassaq ullaakkut 'yesterday morning').

High-frequency contemporative

Contemporative will normally translate to a kind of comprehensible English using ing-forms but especially transitive contemporative will now and then be rather far-fetched if translated this way. A sentence in today's text will clarify this idea. Oqaluttuarinngilaa suna pissutigalugu aallartunga translates word by word into 'She-did-not-tell what having-as-reason that-I-left'. A little more idiomatically suna pissutigalugu obviously means 'why'.

Quite a number of contemporatives must like suna pissutigalugu be understood literally but still you will have to learn them as off-the-shelf chunks. Here are a few examples. aqquaqatigiissillugu 'on the average' ('letting it be equally distributed'), pillugu 'concerning' ('letting it concern smt').

1The double forms hereunder are caused by the fact that the old rules for case have been inconsistent for at least 100 years. As a consequence the two case forms are used randomly in modern Greenlandic.