Greenlandic phonology

This article discusses the phonological system of the Greenlandic language.

Vowels


The Greenlandic three-vowel system, composed of, , and , is typical for an Eskimo–Aleut language. Double vowels are analyzed as two morae and so they are phonologically a vowel sequence and not a long vowel. They are also orthographically written as two vowels. There is only one diphthong,, which occurs only at the ends of words.


 * /u/ is [o~ɔ] before uvulars, [ʉ] between coronals, [u] before labials and word-initially before non-uvulars, and [ʊ] elsewhere.
 * /a/ is [ɑ] before uvulars, [a] word-finally and word-initially before non-uvulars, and [ə] otherwise.
 * /i/ is [ɐ] before uvulars, [i] word-initially before non-uvulars, [y] before labials, and [ɪ] otherwise.

Other authors may use slightly different notation, but Hagerup concludes that the notation is comparable.

The allophonic lowering of and  before uvular consonants is shown in the modern orthography by writing  and  as  and  respectively before  and, as in some orthographies used for Quechua and Aymara. For example:


 * "husband" pronounced.
 * "(s)he has a husband" pronounced and written $⟨ueqarpoq⟩$.
 * "house" pronounced.
 * "(s)he has a house" pronounced and written $⟨illoqarpoq⟩$.

Nonetheless, still there are some minimal pairs of the lowering allophony, in the case of ⟨rC⟩: "gun"  vs. "February".

Consonants
Greenlandic has consonants at five points of articulation: labial, alveolar, palatal, velar and uvular. It distinguishes stops, fricatives, and nasals at the labial, alveolar, velar, and uvular points of articulation. The palatal sibilant has merged with  in all dialects except those of the Sisimiut–Maniitsoq–Nuuk–Paamiut area. The labiodental fricative is contrastive only in loanwords. The alveolar stop is pronounced as an affricate  before the high front vowel. Often, Danish loanwords containing preserve these in writing, but that does not imply a change in pronunciation, for example   "beer" and $⟨Guuti⟩$  "God"; these are pronounced exactly as. Word-final stops may be unreleased or, phrase-internally, even deleted.

Also of note is that geminate /vː/ may be pronounced as dento-labial in southern dialects. This is a feature seemingly unique among the world's languages.

Phonotactics
The Kalaallisut syllable is simple, allowing syllables of (C)(V)V(C), where C is a consonant and V is a vowel and VV is a double vowel or word-final. Native words may begin with only a vowel or and may end only in a vowel or  or rarely. Consonant clusters occur only over syllable boundaries, and their pronunciation is subject to regressive assimilations that convert them into geminates. All non-nasal consonants in a cluster are voiceless.

Prosody
Greenlandic prosody does not include stress as an autonomous category; instead, prosody is determined by tonal and durational parameters. Intonation is influenced by syllable weight: heavy syllables are pronounced in a way that may be perceived as stress. Heavy syllables include syllables with long vowels and syllables before consonant clusters. The last syllable is stressed in words with fewer than four syllables and without long vowels or consonant clusters. The antepenultimate syllable is stressed in words with more than four syllables that are all light. In words with many heavy syllables, syllables with long vowels are considered heavier than syllables before consonant clusters.

Geminate consonants are pronounced long, almost exactly with the double duration of a single consonant.

Intonation in indicative clauses usually rises on the antepenultimate syllable, falls on the penult and rises on the last syllable. Interrogative intonation rises on the penultimate and falls on the last syllable.

Morphophonology
Greenlandic phonology distinguishes itself phonologically from the other Inuit languages by a series of assimilations.

Greenlandic phonology allows clusters of two consonants, but phonetically, the first consonant in a cluster is assimilated to the second one resulting in a geminate consonant. If the first consonant is or, it nevertheless opens/retracts the preceding vowel, which in case of  and  is then written  and. Geminate is pronounced. Geminate is pronounced. Geminate is pronounced. Geminate is pronounced  and written.

These assimilations mean that one of the most recognizable Inuktitut words, iglu ("house"), is illu in Greenlandic, where the consonant cluster of Inuktitut is assimilated into a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative. And the word Inuktitut itself, when translated into Kalaallisut, becomes Inuttut.

When an affix beginning with a consonant is added to a stem that ends in a consonant, the following rules apply (C¹ refers to the final consonant of the stem, C² to the initial consonant of the affix):

is realised as, e.g. →  (more narrowly transcribed ), except as in the next paragraph. In spelling, becomes, except for  and * which become  (this is necessary to indicate the retracted quality of , while the open qualities of  and  are also indicated by spelling them  and ), except for * and  which become.

If the second consonant is, , or , the following applies:

becomes.

becomes. In spelling, *$⟨t⟩$ becomes, except for * and * which become (this is necessary to indicate the retracted quality of , while the open qualities of  and  are also indicated by spelling them  and ).

becomes, except for *  and *  which become.

The consonant has disappeared between  and  or. Therefore, affixes beginning with or  have forms without  when they are suffixed to stems that end in.

The Old Greenlandic diphthong has assimilated to, so when a suffix beginning with  comes after a single , the  becomes. When a suffix beginning with comes after a double, a  is instead inserted before the. To summarise: →, otherwise  →.

The vowel of modern Greenlandic is the result of a historic merger of the Proto-Eskimo–Aleut vowels *i and *ɪ. The fourth vowel was still present in Old Greenlandic, as attested by Hans Egede. In modern West Greenlandic, the difference between the two original vowels can be discerned morphophonologically only in certain environments. The vowel that was originally *ɪ has the variant when preceding another vowel and sometimes disappears before certain suffixes.

The degree to which the assimilation of consonant clusters has taken place is an important dialectal feature separating Polar Eskimo, Inuktun, which still allows some ungeminated consonant clusters, from West and East Greenlandic. East Greenlandic (Tunumiit oraasiat) has shifted some geminate consonants, such as to. Thus, for example, the East Greenlandic name of a particular town is Ittoqqortoormiit, which would appear as Illoqqortoormiut in Kalaallisut.