Markers of futurity and aspect in West Greenlandic

• Main Author: Trondhjem, Naja
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford University PressOxford 2014
• Subjects: greenlandic; inuit; inuktitut
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199679157.003.0006; https://academic.oup.com/book/5830/chapter/149057523

Abstract Originally Inuit languages had a temporal opposition between future and non-future. Over time, Iñupiaq has evolved an opposition between past, present, and future, while Inuktitut and West Greenlandic (WG) have retained the future/non-future opposition. This chapter will show that it is incorrect to describe WG as tenseless; WG has grammaticalized tense affixes. There are five such future-tense affixes: -ssa ‘future’, -niar ‘inevitable future’, -jumaar ‘vague future’, -ssamaar ‘planned future’, and -ler ‘near future’. The first three also have modal meanings: -ssa ‘should’, -niar ‘intention’, -jumaar ‘promise’. While, ssamaar has only one meaning, -ler has an additional three: two in the inner phasal aspect (‘begin’ and ‘be about to’), and one in outer phasal aspect (‘be about to’). This chapter shows that it is necessary to pay close attention to morphological structure, and to allow for the possibility that tense can be expressed by derivational affixes.