Suliatsaluvinik Lots of work to do Nunangat

Inuit

Region Map reflects Statistics 's Sachs geographic reference date (January 1, 2006) Harbour Resolute Holman Bay Clyde River

Cambridge Bay Territory Gjoa Hall Haven Beach Bathurst Inlet

Nunavut Repulse Bay Northwest Coral Territories Baker Lake Harbour Cape Dorset Chesterfield Inlet Whale Cove Nain Hopedale British Postville Columbia Newfoundland and

Alberta

Saskatchewan

Manitoba

Source: 2006 Census of Canada. Produced by the Geography Division, , 2007. Symbiosis

Linguistic Theory Community Language Involvement

ergativity Community linguistic training

noun incorporation documentation

verb paradigms revitalization discussant

affix meanings – more soon! Inuttut Language Learner Dire circumstance of language in Nunatsiavut

• 2016 census 545 people reported as mother tongue in NFL/LAB • 2011 census reports 2,330 Inuit identity in Nunatsiavut. -tuinnaC- ‘only; just’

• Postbase that appear in words between stem and inflection.

• C refers to whether or not the element contains abstract consonant which triggers morphophonological inflection (associated with consonant final stems in other dialects).

• Previous work: Denny (1980); Compton (2012) on other dialects. (1) a. kenauja-mmik asikKi-tuinna-lik-Kutit money-mod. waste-only-progr-ind.2s ‘You are only wasting money.’ [Jeddore 1976]

b. Aupalla-nga-tuinna-lit-tuk. red-turn-just-progr-part.3s ‘He is just blushing,not knowing what to do or say’ [Jeddore 1976] c. siva-niat-tuk tamâne-tuinna-guni dry.up-n.future-part.3s be.there-just-cond.3R ‘If it is just left there, it will dry up.’ [conditionals favour this meaning] [Jeddore 1976] d. pijâgi-tuinna-lit-tuk tease-only-progr.-part.3s ‘He is only teasing.’ -tuinnaC can be added to nouns

2. suaguta-tuinnak rain.shower-only ‘It is only a rain shower.’

3. Kimmi-tuinnak dog-only ‘only a husky’ – not other dogs -see also Denny 1980 Caveats!

This is work in progress.

There are a number of markers of ’only.’

Dialects vary somewhat in distribution and use. Puzzle: -tuinnak- added to WH-words = anyWH

4. a. Namut pisu-jong location.all walk-part.3sQ ‘Where is he walking to?’

b. Kajottak namu-tuinnak ili-gajat-tait nigivi-mmut cup(abs) loc.all.-only place-can-2s/3s bedroom-allative ‘You can put the cup anywhere in the bedroom.’ My question

Why is it that the element that renders the WH something like a negative polarity item ‘any’ also mean ‘only’? WH element Any-WH suna ‘what?’ suna-tuinnak ‘anything’ na-mut ‘where to?’ namu-tuinnak ‘anywhere’ loc.allative na-ne ‘where at?’ nani-tuinnak ‘anywhere’ loc.locative kina ‘who?’ kina-tuinnak ‘anyone’

Kanga ‘when?’ Kanga-tuinnak ‘anytime’ Shouldn’t have been a surprise….

See also Gillon (1999)

Utkuhiksalingmiut dialect (Briggs, Johns and Cook 2015) -tuinnaq- ‘only’; ‘just’ and ‘any’

5. a. ii-tuinna-ru’ni swallow-just-cond.2s/3s ‘If you just swallowed it…’

b. huna-tuinnaq what-any ‘anything’ All Inuit dialects seem to do this Zero indefinites are preferred

6. nagvâ-juk itlivi-up ilua-nit find-part.3s box-poss.s its.interior-abl.3s ‘He found something in the box.’ -tuinnaC- is not obligatory for negatives

7. a. nagvâ-lau-ngi-tuk (suna-tuinna-nik) itlivi-mmit find-d.past-neg.-part.3s what-only-mod.pl. box-abl. ‘He didn’t find anything in the box’

b. taku-lau-ngi-langa (kina-mik) see-d.past-neg.-irr.1s ‘I didn’t see (anyone).’ zero’s are context dependent WH-tuinnak acts like Free Choice Item (FCI) and has restrictions.

8. a. kina-tuinnak katimavi-lia-gajat-tuk someone-only church-travel.to-can-part.3s ‘Anyone can go to church.’

b. *kina-tuinnak ani-juk katimavi-mmit someone-only go.out-part.3s church-abl. ‘Someone left the church.’ If you really have no idea about the identity, another postbase must be used -kiak

9. kina-kiak ani-juk katimavi-mmit someone-or.other went.out-part.3s church-abl. ‘Someone left the church.’ [I don’t know who]

This kind of distinction is discussed in the semantics literature on this topic, which is vast and which I am not presenting here. ‘only’ and ‘always’ are similar in meaning

-tuinnak is a cognate of -innak ‘always’ or ‘only’

10. pi-gi-li-gunni, atu-inna-lât-taga. dummy-have.as-when-cond.2s/3s use-always-d.future-part.1s/3s ‘when you own it, I will always be using it.’ [ Jeddore 1976] -tuinnak is possibly ‘all’ restricted to the types of stems it attaches to. • So you leave the stem empty and let context fill it in unless you want to modify it with an operator. • It is the modification that requires a WH stem. • where the indef. is only overt because of the –tuinnak WH-tuinnak sometimes has meaning of kind + universal Q

(11) suna-tuinnait katima-utau-jut something-tuinna-pl. meeting-for-part.3pl ‘Various things are on the agenda for the meeting.’ Jeddore (1976)

Not just a plural of anything but various ones. English: All kinds of things are on the agenda. This is reminiscent of its nominal use

Repeat of earlier example

3. Kimmi-tuinnak dog-only ‘only a husky’ – not other dogs a final puzzle piece…

12. Peta taku-lau-ngi-tuk kina-mik kisiani taku-laut-tuk Kukiuti-mmik. Peter(abs) see-past-neg-part3s who-mod. but see-past-part3s gun-mod ‘Peter did not see anyone but he did see a gun.’ I had offered a similar sentence with kinatuinnak in it.

It contradicts what I just said but does have an explicit contrast. Another possibility is that kina ‘who’ is more specific than suna ‘what’. Back to community side – current projects

• Phrasebook with Rita Andersen • video documentation and transcription (and translation) Colonization Legacy Recently identified three issues:

• rules that restrict more traditional workers in favour of more “southern style” ones - Code of Conduct

• research model – something obscure and old more valuable than living people who might be your neighbour.

• incoming outside valuable information delivered through specialist highway, e.g. ability to read and assimilate complex written documents. Information about revitalization strategies

• mostly available through book chapters, articles. • exception Leanne Hinton’s wonderful books. • info available at conferences but these involve great expense, time, travel. • Nunatsiavut is a largely oral culture. Why can’t we have presentations that are video or live where these issues are discussed? • Recently at UofT Alessandro Jaker, a Postdoc specializing in Dene language revitalization gave a talk at UofT about his work on a digital grammar he is developing with the community. We presented it in Nain live through Webex To a small but important audience More things like this…

• We made a video of Alessandro’s talk and he is willing to share it with community linguists. • We could do more videos of presentations and stream live talks across communities. • Suzi Lima and I have just started talking this kind of project. Finally - Heartening observation

• Many people in Nunatsiavut are hungry for language lessons. • Each person I met specifically discussed the need for language materials for their own level. • Even I feel that. I am ready for next step. References Briggs, Jean, Alana Johns and Conor Cook. 2015. Uqauhiitigut Dictionary of Utkuhiksalingmiut Inuktitut Postbase Suffixes. Iqaluit: Arctic College Compton, Richard. 2012. The Syntax and Semantics of Modification in Inuktitut: Adjectives and Adverbs in a Polysynthetic Language. Ph.D thesis, University of Toronto. Denny, J. Peter. 1980. The Logical Semantics of ‘only’: tuaq, innaq and tuinnaq. Research Bulletin #524, Dept. of Psychology, University of Western Ontario. Gillon, Carrie. 1999. When WH Words Move and Why: A Case Study in Inuktitut. MA forum paper, University of Toronto. Haspelmath, Martin. 1997. Indefinite Pronouns. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hinton, Leanne. 2013. Bringing our Languages Home: Language Revitalization for Families. Berkeley, CA: Heday. Jeddore, Rose, editor. 1976. Labrador Inuit: Uqausingit. Nain: The Labrador Inuit Committee on Literacy. [out of print] Nakummesuak Thank you very much! Thanks to:

• SSHRC for financial support • Rita Andersen of Nain for providing and discussing examples. • Guillaume Thomas for pointing me to the formal semantics literature.