Aspects of "tsi" and of Certain Other Intransitivizing Postbases in Labrador Inuttut

Abstract

One of the Eastern Canadian dialects of Inuktitut, Labrador Inuttut is currently spoken primarily in five settlements of the Labrador coast. This paper discusses aspects of certain intransitivizing postbases in Labrador Inuttut, as well as aspects of their co-occurrence patterns with some verbal bases.

The intransitivizing postbases considered are restricted in their distribution, in that they can only be affixed to certain types of verbal bases. The verbal bases presented were initially selected from a dictionary produced by Inuit (Labrador Inuit Uqausingit). Further data were elicited from native speakers.

These bases are grouped into four major categories based on morphological properties. This classification provides information with respect to possible affixation of intransitive and/or transitive inflectional suffixes respectively to the bases, and with respect to the co-occurrence of the intransitivizing postbases with the bases. Morphological categories show a tendency to coincide with major semantic categories of verbal bases.