A Grammar of Kalaallisut: (West Greenlandic Inuttut) (review)

Although not the most populous indigenous language of the western hemisphere, Kalaallisut (West Greenlandic) is probably one of the most vigorously used and has one of the best chances of any of surviving into the twenty-second century. The language stands out in other ways as well: its baroque, polysynthetic system of derivational and inflectional morphology and its ergative morphosyntax have long attracted attention in discussions of linguistic theory and linguistic typology. Many other features of its grammar, such as the syntax-semantics interface or its place in the typology of cliticization, remain generally unknown or understudied. As such, Sadock’s addition to the LINCOM series of grammar monographs is a welcome contribution in these areas and, though not a full reference grammar, will make materials in this language more broadly available.

The book is divided into ten chapters plus three appendices. Ch. 1 briefly covers basic introductory facts about the language—where it is spoken, by how many people, and sociolinguistic conditions since European contact—as well as aspects of its written language and basic phonetic details. The great bulk of the book (Chs. 2, 5, 8, 9, and 10 and passim) discusses the morphosyntactic issues for which Kalaallisut is so famous. Ch. 2, on morphology, is perhaps the most important in that it lays out the important criterial definitions that distinguish different kinds of morphosyntactic categories and subcategories: stems from words; inflectional from derivational morphemes; regular from derivational clitics; person, number, case, and so on. Given the prominence of morphosyntactic phenomena in the language, these recur constantly throughout the book.

Ch. 3 addresses the morphophonological restrictions placed on such morphological processes, such as the conditions under which ‘full’ stems vs. vocalic stems vs. geminate stems, various kinds of irregular allomorphy, and so on are selected. Ch. 4 is very brief, just two pages, covering phonology. This is probably better seen as a reflection of the language rather than of the work as such. In Kalaallisut, like many other languages, most kinds of surface allomorphy are lexically restricted, leaving less room for purely phonologically conditioned alternations. Ch. 5 lays out all of the basic generalizations of Kalaallisut syntax, which is predominantly left-branching and, to a lesser extent, head-marking in both noun and verb phrases. Such generalizations, however, are not infrequently violated for other reasons, such as discourse-structural organization placing NPs after rather than before their head verb. Ch. 6 surveys the semantic structure of clauses, including semantic criteria for subjecthood, and issues of quantifier scope. Ch. 7 discusses the manner in which reference—reflexivity, definiteness, and deixis—is encoded in the language. Especially in the case of reflexives, reference frequently surfaces in both derivational and inflectional morphology. Chs. 8 and 9 cover topics in the syntax-semantics interface, of derivational and inflectional morphology respectively. These cover topics such as noun incorporation, nominalization, phrasal modification, internal vs. external person, case, mood, and so on. The final chapter sketches the properties of various kinds of clitics. Following the main text are two appendices of schematics for nominal and verbal inflectional morphology and for demonstrative stems. A third appendix contains five pages of an interlinearly glossed text with running translation.

One of the author’s stated purposes was to provide a grammar of Kalaallisut that was descriptive and yet adhered to the principles of autolexical grammar, a lexicalist theory of grammar that radically separates out language modules, governing them through generalized interface principles. The organization of the grammar into modules followed by interface chapters reflects this and should interest anyone concerned with questions of modular mismatches.