Iņupiatun Eskimo Dictionary - SIL International

the goal, and the hitting is the action that passes (transits) from the actor to the goal. (A transitive
sentence shows the subject/actor in the relative/ergative case and the object/goal in the absolutive case.)
Verbs that do not have a goal are called intransitive verbs. An English example could be, “Putu sleeps.”
Putu is the actor, sleeping is the “action,” but there is no goal at all.
A person does not use isolated items of the vocabulary. In real life, words are connected into coherent
speech, using all available components of the language. A single word in Iñupiatun may be the
equivalent to an entire sentence in English, for example,
Example 1
Base Ending Base Ending Base Postbase Ending Enclitic
Putu -(ä)(u)m Akâaq -q Tuqqut- -(s)uk +-(k)aa +-guuq
Putu Rel/Erg Bear Abs to kill to want to 3s/3s it is said
Putum
Putu
akâaq
bear
tuqqutchukkaa-guuq
(he) wants to kill (it), they said.
Example 2
Base P-b Ending Enclitic Base P-b P-b P-b P-b Ending
Aànaq -(ä)uraq -q +guuq qiruk -taq -niaq +-(k)aqsi -niq tuq
woman little Abs it is said firewood go after intent begin evident 3s
Aànauraà-àuuq
Once a little woman
qiruktaàniagaqsiñiqsuq.
began to go out to look for firewood.
Example 3
Base Postbase Postbase Ending
tupiq -(à)ik -niq tutin
house to have s-t good evident 2s
Tupiàiäñiqsutin.
You have a nice house.
Example 4
Base P-b P-b P-b Ending
Umiaq -(q)pak -si -(s)uk tuq
boat big buy want 3sg
Umiaqpaksisuktuq.
He wants to buy a big boat.
The postbases in the four examples above show first a modal auxiliary or “helping verb,” here -(s)uk-
‘to want’. The second example shows a number of different postbases. The first of these modifies a noun
and leaves it a noun, here –uraq- ‘small, soft’. The second word in the second example includes a
postbase that changes a noun into a verb, -taq- ‘go after’, and other postbases that allow the new stem to
remain a verb, such as –niaq- ‘inceptive’ (planned action to start soon), -(k)aqsi- ‘begin,’ and –niq-
‘evidential’ again. The third example demonstrates first a modal auxiliary, here -(à)ik- ‘to have
something good’ and second a comment, here –niq ‘evidential’. The fourth example shows first a
postbase that modifies the noun -(q)pak- ‘big’, and then a postbase that changes a noun stem into a verb
–si- ‘buy, get’ and the modal auxiliary -(s)uk- ‘want’ again.
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