ilakka

TRANSITIVE ENDINGS

 

Consider the two following sentences: 
I see. I see her.

The first sentence involves just one person, the subject, or the person who does the seeing. The second sentence involves two people, the subject and an object, or the person who is seen.


Verbs that involve both a subject (a doer) and an object (the one at the receiving end of the action) are called transitive. Whereas English indicates the object using a pronoun, her, Inuktitut has affixes that indicate both the subject and the object of the sentence at the same time:

takujunga I see.
takujara I see her.
tusaajuq She hears.
tusaajaatit She hears you.
maliktunga I follow.
maliktakka I follow them.
Because each affix indicates both a subject and an object, there are a lot of possibilities. Here is an expanded list of the basic transitive endings:
  me you him / her / it
I  

takujagit

I see you.

takujara

I see him.

you

takujarma

You see me.

 

takujait

You see him.

he / she

takujaanga

She sees me.

takujaatit

She sees you.

takujanga

She sees him.

  the two of us you two the two of them
I  

takujassik

I see the two of you.

takujaakka

I see the two of them.

you

takujattiguk

You see the two of us.

 

takujakkik

You see the two of them.

he / she

takujaatiguk

She sees the two of us.

takujaatik

She sees you two.

takujaangik

She sees the two of them.

  all of us all of you all of them
I  

takujatsi

I see all of you.

takujakka

I see all of them.

you

takujattigut

You see all of us.

 

takujatit

You see all of them.

he / she

takujaatigut

She sees all of us.

takujaasi

He sees all of you.

takujangit

She sees all of them.

Remember that if these affixes are added to roots that end in a consonant, the first letter of the affix changes to t:
uqaalavigilauqtaanga She called me.
maliktara I am following him.

It is important to note what happens if we want to include the names of the people who are involved in these sentences:

Mialiup Qajaq uqaalavigiqqaujanga. Miali called Qajaq.

To the name of the subject (or the person who is performing the action), we always add the affix -up to distinguish him or her from the person who is at the receving end of the action.

Note also that when -up is added to a name or a root ending in a consonant, it deletes the final consonant:

qimiq dog
Qimiup arnaq maliqqaujanga The dog followed the woman.

 

THE AFFIX -GI-


In an earlier lesson we looked at transitive endings:
takujara I see him.
takujagit I see you.
takujanga She sees him.


Because these endings indicate two people (a subject and an object) they are often used to describe the relationship between two people.

To do so, we use the verb -gi-, meaning to have. Unlike –qaq-, which also means to have, -gi- is always followed by a transitive ending:

panik daughter
Ilisapi panigiviuk?
 Is Ilisapi your daughter
(literally, do you have Ilisapi as a daughter?)
ii, panigijara* Yes, she is my daughter

* note that in conversation, a fluent speaker would be more likely to answer more simply by saying: ii, paniga

 

When -gi- is added to a stem, ending in q, it switches to -ri-:

nuliaq wife
Uluusi nuliariviuk?
Is Uluusi your wife? (literally, Do you have Uluusi as your wife?).
Aagga, Miali nuliara.* No Mary is my wife.


*As with the first example, nuliarijara is gramatically correct, but less likely to be used in conversation.

angijuqqaaq
head of an organization; boss
Inna angijuqqaarivauk?
Is that his boss?
ii angijuqqaanga Yes, she's his boss.