Assimilation

Source:^[15]

Two consonants cannot appear together unless they share the manner of articulation (in this case treating the lateral and approximant consonants as fricatives). The only exception to this rule is having a voiced fricative consonant appear with a nasal consonant. Since all stops in North Slope are voiceless, a lot of needed assimilation arises from having to assimilate a voiceless stop to a voiced consonant.

This process is realized by assimilating the first consonant in the cluster to a consonant that: 1) has the same (or closest possible) area of articulation as the consonant being assimilated to; and 2) has the same manner of articulation as the second consonant that it is assimilating to. If the second consonant is a lateral or approximant, the first consonant will assimilate to a lateral or approximant if possible. If not the first consonant will assimilate to a fricative. Therefore:

* The sound /ɴ/ is not represented in the orthography. Therefore the spelling ġn can be pronounced as /ʁn/ or /ɴn/. In both examples 1 and 2, since voiced fricatives can appear with nasal consonants, both consonant clusters are possible.

The stops /t̚ʲ/ and /t/ do not have a corresponding voiced fricative, therefore they will assimilate to the closest possible area of articulation. In this case, the /t̚ʲ/ will assimilate to the voiced approximant /j/. The /t/ will assimilate into a /ʐ/. Therefore:

(In the first example above note that <sr> denotes a single consonant, as shown in the alphabet section below, so the constraint of at most two consonants in a cluster, as mentioned above, is not violated.)

In the case of the second consonant being a lateral, the lateral will again be treated as a fricative. Therefore:

Since voiced fricatives can appear with nasal consonants, both consonant clusters are possible.

The sounds /f/ /x/ and /χ/ are not represented in the orthography (unless they occur alone between vowels). Therefore, like the /ɴn/ example shown above, assimilation still occurs while the spelling remains the same. Therefore:

These general features of assimilation are not shared with Uummarmiut, Malimiutun, or the Seward Peninsula dialects. Malimiutun and the Seward Peninsula dialects "preserve voiceless stops (k, p, q, t) when they are etymological (i.e. when they belong to the original word-base)".^[12] Compare:

Palatalization

Source:^[15]

The following patterns of palatalization can occur in North Slope Iñupiaq: /t/ → /t̚ʲ/, /tʃ/ or /s/; /ɬ/ → /ʎ̥/; /l/ → /ʎ/; and /n/ → /ɲ/. Palatalization only occurs when one of these four alveolars is preceded by a strong i. Compare:

Please note that the sound /t̚ʲ/ does not have its own letter, and is simply spelled with a T t. The IPA transcription of the above vowels may be incorrect.

If a t that precedes a vowel is palatalized, it will become an /s/. The strong i affects the entire consonant cluster, palatalizing all consonants that can be palatalized within the cluster. Therefore:

Note in the first example, due to the nature of the suffix, the /q/ is dropped. Like the first set of examples, the IPA transcriptions of above vowels may be incorrect.

If a strong i precedes geminate consonant, the entire elongated consonant becomes palatalized. For Example: niġḷḷaturuq and tikiññiaqtuq.

Further strong versus weak i processes

Source:^[15]

The strong i can be paired with a vowel. The weak i on the other hand cannot.^[17] The weak i will become an a if it is paired with another vowel, or if the consonant before the i becomes geminate. This rule may or may not apply to other dialects. Therefore:

Like the first two sets of examples, the IPA transcriptions of above vowels may not be correct.

Phonological rules

The following are the phonological rules:^[16] The /f/ is always found as a geminate.

The /j/ cannot be geminated, and is always found between vowels or preceded by /v/. In rare cases it can be found at the beginning of a word.

The /h/ is never geminate, and can appear as the first letter of the word, between vowels, or preceded by /k/ /ɬ/ or /q/.

The /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ are always geminate or preceded by a /t/.

The /ʐ/ can appear between vowels, preceded by consonants /ɣ/ /k/ /q/ /ʁ/ /t/ or /v/, or it can be followed by /ɣ/, /v/, /ʁ/.

Absolutive case/noun stems

The subject of an intransitive sentence or the object of a transitive sentence take on the absolutive case. This case is likewise used to mark the basic form of a noun. Therefore, all the singular, dual, and plural absolutive forms serve as stems for the other oblique cases.^[15] The following chart is verified of both Malimiutun and North Slope Iñupiaq.

If the singular absolutive form ends with -n, it has the underlying form of -ti /tə/. This form will show in the absolutive dual and plural forms. Therefore:

Regarding nouns that have an underlying /ə/ (weak i), the i will change to an a and the previous consonant will be geminated in the dual form. Therefore:

If the singular form of the noun ends with -k, the preceding vowel will be elongated. Therefore:

On occasion, the consonant preceding the final vowel is also geminated, though exact phonological reasoning is unclear.^[18]

Ergative case

The ergative case is often referred to as the Relative Case in Iñupiaq sources.^[15] This case marks the subject of a transitive sentence or a genitive (possessive) noun phrase. For non-possessed noun phrases, the noun is marked only if it is a third person singular. The unmarked nouns leave ambiguity as to who/what is the subject and object. This can be resolved only through context.^[15][18] Possessed noun phrases and noun phrases expressing genitive are marked in ergative for all persons.^[18]

This suffix applies to all singular unpossessed nouns in the ergative case.

Please note the underlying /tə/ form in the first example.

Instrumental case

This case is also referred to as the modalis case. This case has a wide range of uses described below:

Since the ending is the same for both dual and plural, different stems are used. In all the examples the k is assimilated to an ŋ.

Allative case

The allative case is also referred to as the terminalis case. The uses of this case are described below:^[18]

*It is unclear as to whether this example is regular for the dual form or not.

Etymology

The numeral five, tallimat, is derived from the word for hand/arm. The word for 10, qulit, is derived from the word for "top", meaning the ten digits on the top part of the body. The numeral for 15, akimiaq, means something like "it goes across", and the numeral for 20, iñuiññaq means something like "entire person" or "complete person", indicating the 20 digits of all extremities.^[24]

Tense

Tense marking is always optional. The only explicitly marked tense is the future tense. Past and present tense cannot be marked and are always implied. All verbs can be marked through adverbs to show relative time (using words such as "yesterday" or "tomorrow"). If neither of these markings is present, the verb can imply a past, present, or future tense.^[18]

Aspect

Marking aspect is optional in Iñupiaq verbs. Both North Slope and Malimiut Iñupiaq have a perfective versus imperfective distinction in aspect, along with other distinctions such as: frequentative (-ataq; "to repeatedly verb"), habitual (-suu; "to always, habitually verb"), inchoative (-łhiñaaq; "about to verb"), and intentional (-saġuma; "intend to verb"). The aspect suffix can be found after the verb root and before or within the obligatory person-number-mood suffix.^[18]

Mood

Iñupiaq has the following moods: Indicative, Interrogative, Imperative (positive, negative), Coordinative, and Conditional.^[18][22] Participles are sometimes classified as a mood.^[18]

Indicative mood endings can be transitive or intransitive, as seen in the table below.

Noun incorporation

Noun incorporation is a common phenomenon in Malimiutun Iñupiaq. The first type of noun incorporation is lexical compounding. Within this subset of noun incorporation, the noun, which represents an instrument, location, or patient in relation to the verb, is attached to the front of the verb stem, creating a new intransitive verb. The second type is manipulation of case. It is argued whether this form of noun incorporation is present as noun incorporation in Iñupiaq, or "semantically transitive noun incorporation"—since with this kind of noun incorporation the verb remains transitive. The noun phrase subjects are incorporated not syntactically into the verb but rather as objects marked by the instrumental case. The third type of incorporation, manipulation of discourse structure, is supported by Mithun (1984) and argued against by Lanz (2010). See Lanz's paper for further discussion.^[18] The final type of incorporation is classificatory noun incorporation, whereby a "general [noun] is incorporated into the [verb], while a more specific [noun] narrows the scope".^[18] With this type of incorporation, the external noun can take on external modifiers and, like the other incorporations, the verb becomes intransitive. See Nominal Morphology (Instrumental Case, Usage of Instrumental table, row four) on this page for an example.

Switch-references

Switch-references occur in dependent clauses only with third person subjects. The verb must be marked as reflexive if the third person subject of the dependent clause matches the subject of the main clause (more specifically matrix clause).^[18] Compare: