TEMPERATURE TERMS IN WEST GREENLANDIC AN INVESTIGATION OF PERCEPTUAL, PHYSICAL AND SEMANTIC DISTINCTIONS IN THE TEMPERATURE DOMAIN

GREENLANDIC ESKIMO KALAALLISUT  Eskimo-Aleut family  Spoken in Greenland and Denmark (approximately by 45,000)  Dialects: West Greenlandic, East Greenlandic Tunumiisut, Thule dialect Inuktun  A polysynthetic language

POLYSYNTHETIC LANGUAGES All words are made up of a stem (base) plus any number of affixes followed by a grammatical (inflectional) ending and, optionally, one or more enclitics beyond that.

Atuarfimmiisimavunga. atuar-fim-mii-sima-vunga read-place-be.in-PERF-INTR INDIC 1/SG-and ’I have been to school.’

TEMPERATURE TERMS Temperature terms are represented by verbs and intransitive participles (derived from the verbs). A morphological category of adjectives is not present in West Greenlandic.

TEMPERATURE PHRASES In the case of a verbal phrase, the noun occurring in the subject position is the entity whose temperature status is characterized by the verb: Ullu-mi [ [ sila ] SUBJ [ niller-poq ] V ] VP day-LOC-SG weather-ABS-SG be.cold-INTR-INDIC-3-SG ‘The weather is cold today.’ or ‘It is cold today.’

TEMPERATURE PHRASES In the case of a nominal phrase, the noun occurring in the head position is characterized (modified) by an intransitive participle: [ [ klima ] HEAD [ kiat-toq ] MOD ] NP climate-ABS-SG heat-PART-INTR-3-SG ‘subtropical climate’ (‘A climate which is hot.’)

Three distinct categories (1) The category of three temperature zones: the warming, the neutral and the cooling zone (Table A. and B.) (2) The category of different objects (animate, non-animate, environmental, solid and liquid) whose temperature statuses are characterized by temperature terms (Table A.) (3) The category of different types of temperature perception: tactile vs. body temperature (Table B.)

The warming zone 1. uunappoq ‘this is hot’ (solid / liquid / environmental) - Uunartoq Qeqertaq ‘Warming Island’ 2. kiappoq ‘it is warm’ (weather / degrees) 3. kissarpoq ‘this is warm’ (solid / liquid) 4. oqorpoq ‘this is warm’ (clothes) 5. mannguppoq ‘it is lukewarm’ - weather

The neutral zone 5. mannguppoq ’it is lukewarm, it is warm’ (weather) 6. pueqqorpoq ’it is chilly, it is cool’ (the shift between the neutral and the cooling zone – weather / wind)

The cooling zone 6. (pueqqorpoq ‘it is cool, it is chilly’ – weather) 7. qerivoq ‘this is frozen stiff, the cold affects him’ (solid / environmental / animate) 8. nillerpoq ‘it/this is cold’ (solid / liquid / weather)

The cooling zone 9. qerinnarpoq ’it is cold, freezes’ (weather / animate*) * the weather is co cold that one is apt to get chilblains or that everything freezes 10. qiianarpoq ‘it is cold, it is so cold that one freezes’ (weather) 11. issippoq ‘it is cold’ (weather / degrees) 12. qiiavoq ‘he/she or an animal is freezing’ (animate)

Conclusion Variety and different distributions of West Greenlandic temperature lexicalizations result from different nominal and physical classifications

(1) Physical parameters Clear distinctions between temperature zones (Tables A. and B.) Temperature terms mark the distinction between zones above and below the freezing point

(2) Noun-verb combinability Distinctions between nominal entities which can occur with temperature verbs (Table A.): - environmental objects (air temperature, weather conditions, wind) -other (animate and non-animate) objects than environmental objects

(3) Perceptual distinction The West Greenlandic data exemplify interaction among different physical parameters as we see in: - nillerpoq (tactile vs. body temperature) - qerivoq (tactile vs. body temperature)

A language with ’two temperatures’ issisiut ‘a device that measures outside temperature - a thermometer’ kissarnersiut ’a device that measures body temperature - a clinical thermometer’