Markers of futurity and aspect in West Greenlandic

• Main Author: Trondhjem, Naja Blytmann
• Other Authors: De Brabanter, Philippe, Kissine, Mikhail, Sharifzadeh, Saghie
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford University Press 2014
• Subjects: Canada; greenlandic; inuit; inuktitut; Alaska
• Online Access: https://curis.ku.dk/portal/da/publications/markers-of-futurity-and-aspect-in-west-greenlandic(6aef4a40-970e-421b-a507-5e379c342809).html

Markers of futurity and aspect in West Greenlandic Unlike European languages tense in the West Greenlandic (WG) language is not marked in the inflection, but it is marked by derivational affixes (henceforth affixes). The West Greenlandic language belongs to Inuit-languages, (Iñupiaq (Alaska), Inuktitut (Canada) and West Greenlandic) and is a polysynthetic language. The temporal system is based on future-non-future opposition as in Inuktitut (Canada), which means that all future time reference must be marked, the present time reference is unmarked and past time reference can be marked if necessary. The Alaskan Iñupiaq has an opposition between past, present and future. In Inuktitut and West Greenlandic tense is marked by optional derivational affixes. In Inuktitut the tense affixes have developed a complicated remoteness system (future and past) (Swift, 2004). In West Greenlandic the future tense affixes have a distinction between vague and inevitable future, and the past time affixes have developed different perfect meanings, while in Iñupiaq (Alaska), the future is marked by optional affixes, the past is marked in the inflection, and present is unmarked as in Inuktitut and West Greenlandic (Trondhjem, 2007). In the WG language there are about 400-500 affixes, these are applied recursively i.e. stem + (affix) + inflection. The affixes are divided into two groups according to the scope of the function: 1.The verbal modifying affixes are placed near the stem, and the scope includes what is to the left of the affix within the verb. 2. The sentential affixes are placed near the inflection, and the scope includes the whole sentence. Some of the affixes have more than one meaning, and therefore the same affix can indicate both the verbal modifying and the sentential function. There are about 40-50 aspectual affixes, divided into ‘inner’ phasal aspect and ‘outer’ phasal aspect and about five future tense affixes in WG (Fortescue 1980/Kristoffersen 1991). Many of these affixes belong to more than one semantic category, ...