West Greenlandic

Lily Kahn is Professor of Hebrew and Jewish Languages at University College London (UCL). Her research areas include endangered and minority languages, as well as translation studies. She is co-editor with Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi of two UCL Press book series, Grammars of World and Minority Languages and Textbooks of World and Minority Languages.Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi is Associate Professor of Finnish and Minority Languages at UCL and Senior Lecturer in Finnish and Finno-Ugric Languages at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research interests include endangered and minority languages, language pedagogy, and song lyrics. Relevant publications include Finnish Tutor (2017) and North Sámi: An Essential Grammar (with Lily Kahn; Routledge, 2017).

• ContentsAcknowledgementsAbbreviations1. Introduction1.1. Greenlandic within the Eskimo-Aleut language family1.2. Greenlandic language varieties1.3. Historical and sociolinguistic introduction to West Greenlandic1.3.1. Early history of Greenlandic1.3.2. History of written West Greenlandic1.3.3. Contemporary West Greenlandic1.3.4. Aspects of Greenlandic culture 1.4. Characteristic features of West Greenlandic 1.5. How to use this grammar 1.5.1. Overall approach 1.5.2. Dictionary forms of words 1.5.3. Additive and truncative suffixes 1.5.4. Examples of grammatical points 1.5.5. Glossing 2. Phonology and orthography 2.1. The alphabet 2.2. Vowels 2.3. Consonants 2.4. Syllables, stress, and intonation 2.5. Morphophonological variation 2.5.1. Consonant changes 2.5.2. Vowel changes 2.5.3. Helping vowel ‑i‑ 2.5.4 Loss of glides (j and v) 2.5.5 Stem types 2.5.6. Sound alternation in the beginning of suffixes 2.6. Kleinschmidt’s orthography 3. Nouns 3.1. Case and number 3.2. Noun stem types 3.3. Function of cases 3.4. Possessive inflection 3.4.1. Possessive absolutive 3.4.2. Possessive relative 3.4.3. Possessive allative 3.4.4. Possessive locative 3.4.5. Possessive ablative 3.4.6. Possessive instrumental 3.4.7. Possessive prolative 3.4.8. Possessive equative 3.5. Collective suffixes 4. Pronouns 4.1. Personal 4.2. Demonstrative 4.3. Interrogative 4.4. Reflexive 4.5. Reciprocal 4.6. Other 5. Numerals 5.1. Cardinal 5.2. Ordinal 6. Noun modification (= adjectives) 6.1. Attributive modifiers 6.2. Predicative modifiers 6.3. Comparison 6.3.1. Comparative 6.3.2. Superlative 7. Verbs 7.1. Person and number 7.1.1. Subject suffixes 7.1.2. Object suffixes 7.2. Mood 7.2.1. Independent/main moods 7.2.2. Subordinate moods 7.3. Tense 7.3.1. Present tense 7.3.2. Past tense 7.3.3. Future tense 7.4 Aspect 7.4.1. Completed 7.4.2. Habitual 7.4.3. Inchoative 7.5. Modality 7.6. Evidentiality 7.7. Causativity 7.8. Reflexivity and reciprocity 7.8.1. Reflexivity 7.8.2. Reciprocity 7.9. Passivity 7.10. Valency 7.11. Negation 7.11.1. Basic negative suffixes 7.11.2. Negative suffixes with more specific meanings 7.11.3. Negative intransitive participle 7.11.4. Negative indefinite pronouns and adverbs 7.11.5. Periphrastic negative constructions 8. Participles 8.1. Intransitive participle 8.2. Passive participle 8.3. Abstract participle 9. Adverbs 9.1. Manner 9.2. Time9.3. Place and direction 9.4. Degree, measure, and quantity 9.5. Modal 9.6. Interrogative 10. Postpositions 10.1. Place and direction 10.2. Time 10.3. Other 11. Conjunctions 11.1. Coordinating 11.2. Subordinating 12. Particles 12.1. Discourse particles and interjections 12.2. Enclitic particles 13. Suffixes 13.1. Suffix types 13.2. Order of suffixes 14. Phrases, clauses, and sentences 14.1. Basic word order 14.2. Incorporation 14.2.1. Incorporated predicative 14.2.2. Incorporated direct object 14.2.3. Incorporated noun in oblique cases 14.3. Definiteness 14.4. Clause types 14.4.1. Copular 14.4.2. Intransitive 14.4.3. Transitive 14.4.4. Half-transitive 14.4.5. Double transitive 14.4.6. Existential 14.4.7. Possessive 14.4.8. Impersonal 14.4.9. Interrogative 14.5. Complex sentences 14.5.1. Adverbial 14.5.2. Relative 14.5.3. Complement 15. List of essential suffixes Suggested resources Index