Iņupiatun Eskimo Dictionary - SIL International

associated with it (non-specific: ‘a’ or specific: ‘the’). In Iñupiatun, such an article is not used. In
English, grammatical tense (past, present, future) is important. In Iñupiatun, there is no past tense;
rather, events are classified as to whether the action is realized or not realized yet and are expressed on
the surface level by additional morphemes. In English, tense is referring to the time of the action. In
Iñupiatun, aspect refers to the type of the action (its beginning, duration, completion, or repetition and
without reference to its position in time; these aspect modifications are expressed by postbases, see
below). In English, word classification is different. The rules that govern the structure of a sentence and
its many components (syntax) are very complex. In Iñupiatun, a single verb is (almost) always equivalent
to an entire sentence in English. So, where English has a very complex sentence structure, Iñupiatun has
a very complex verb structure. In Iñupiatun, there is no clear-cut dichotomy between nouns and verbs.
For example, one might hear, “Did they go boating?” for “Did they use a boat to ride around?” This
process is called incorporation, which changes a noun stem to function as verb by adding a postbase to
the noun stem (see –taq in example 2 or –si in example 4 below). Such incorporation affects the
transitivity of the resulting word. Iñupiatun uses intransitive inflection on a transitive verb with a nonspecific
object, and then marks it with the modalis-case. There is no equivalent for that in English.
English uses prepositions (such as, to, into, up, above, etc) whereas Iñupiatun uses post-positional cases
(see Appendix 6). Almost all of the English prepositions are included within the semantic areas of these
six cases.
The Iñupiatun language is a polysynthetic language. It has three types of words – the expandableinflective,
the inflective, and the non-inflective. The expandable-inflective words make up the largest
group; this group includes noun and verb stems, positional base words, personal and indefinite pronouns,
and demonstrative adverbs. The inflective group of words is the group of demonstrative pronouns. The
third group comprises conjunctions, the interjections, and the enclitics (a word that is treated in
pronunciation as forming a part of a preceding word and that is often unaccented or contracted; for
examples, see below).
All stems of the expandable-inflective type (verbs, nouns, and post-bases) behave in the same manner.
They are divided into seven classes (see Appendix 7) based on whether a stem ends in a vowel (“V”) or
a double vowel (“VV”), in the consonant –n (with the underlying form of –ti), or in –q or –k.
Some stems name things and are commonly referred to as nouns; some other stems name events and
are commonly referred to as verbs. For example, nanuq ‘polar bear’ names an animate and umiaq ‘boat’
names an inanimate thing, while tautuk- ‘see’, tuqqut- ‘kill’, tuqu- ‘die, be dead’, or uvakäauti- ‘take
something from here’ refer to an event. Iñupiatun allows morphemes (smallest grammatical unit of a
language) to enter between a stem (base) and its ending (suffix); they are called ‘postbases’ and cannot
stand alone. The ending (or suffix) indicates the relationship between words, which is the grammatical
information about person, number, tense, mood, and voice (for verbs) or about the post-positional case or
possession (for nouns). These endings are commonly referred to as inflection, thus the designation
“expandable-inflective” for these words.
A special comment about transitivity is needed here. Verbs are used in language to describe an
action (i.e. tuqqut- ‘kill’), a state of being (i.e. tuqu- ‘die, be dead’), or a change of being (process, i.e.
tuquliäa- ‘wilt’). The person or thing that does the action is called the actor. If there is someone or
something that receives the action, he/she/it is called the goal. If a verb does have a goal, it is called a
transitive verb, because the action passes over from the actor to the goal; one might say, the action
“transits.” For example, in the English sentence, “Putu hits his brother,” Putu is the actor, the brother is
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