Ethnicity 2,000 Alyutors (1997) Dialects AlutorPalana Koryak | Native speakers 25 (2010 census) | |
Language family Chukotko-KamchatkanChukotkanAlyutor |
Alyutor or Alutor is a language of Russia that belongs to the Chukotkan branch of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages.
Contents
Sociolinguistic situation
The Alutor are the indigenous inhabitants of the northern part of the Kamchatka Peninsula. The language is unwritten and moribund; in the 1970s residents of the chief Alutor village of Vyvenka under the age of 25 did not know the language. In recent years the Vyvenka village school has started teaching the language. Until 1958 the language was considered the "village" (settled) dialect of the Koryak language, but it is not intelligible with traditionally nomadic varieties of Koryak. The autonym [ˈnəməlʔən] means "villager".
Typology
Alutor is a polysynthetic language.
The morphology is agglutinative, with extensive prefixes and suffixes.
The argument structure is ergative.
The word order is variable, and it is difficult to say which typology is basic. The verb-absolutive orders AVO and VAO are perhaps most common.
Vowels
Alyutor has six vowels, five of which may be long or short. The /ə/ is a schwa, and cannot be stressed.
Consonants
There are 18 consonants in Alyutor.
Stress
Stress is generally on the second syllable of the word. However, it cannot fall on a schwa or the last syllable, so in two-syllable words stress is transferred to the first syllable, as long as that vowel is not a schwa. In cases where it is a schwa, a third syllable is added to the word, and the second syllable is stressed.
Examples: /ˈmi.məl/ 'water', /qə.ˈla.vul/ 'husband', /pə.ˈla.kəl.ŋən/ 'a mukluk (boot)', /ˈta.wə.ja.tək/ 'to feed'.
Syllable structure
All Alyutor syllables begin with a single consonant. If the vowel is short, including a schwa, they may also close with a single consonant.
Examples are /vi.ˈta.tək/ 'to work', /ˈtil.mə.til/ 'eagle', /ˈʔit.ʔən/ 'parka'.
Alyutor word boundaries always coincide with syllable boundaries.
Morphology
Alyutor has the following parts of speech: nouns, adjectives, numerals, pronouns, verbs, participles, adverbs, postpositions, conjunctions, and "particles".
Nouns
Nouns are inflected for number, case, definiteness, and grammatical person.
There are three grammatical numbers: singular, dual and plural.
There are eleven cases: absolutive, ergative, locative, dative lative, prolative, contactive, causative, equative, comitative, and associative.
Number and case are expressed using a single affix. A suffix is used for all cases except the comitative and associative, which are expressed using circumfixes. There are two declensions, taught as three noun classes. The first class are nonhuman nouns of the first declension. Number is only distinguished in the absolutive case, though verbal agreement may distinguish number when these nouns are in the ergative. The second class are proper names and kin terms for elders. They are second declension, and distinguish number in the ergative, locative, and lative cases, as well as the absolutive. The third class are the other human nouns; they may be either first or second declension.
Case roles
Grammatical person
Grammatical first and second person suffixes on nouns are used to equate a noun with participants in the discourse. They only appear in the absolutive, with an intervening j on nouns ending in a vowel and an i on nouns ending in a consonant.
Numerals
Alyutor has simple numerals for the numbers one to five, ten, and twenty. All other numbers are compounds based on these numerals.
Verbs
There are finite (conjugated) and non-finite verbs. There are several conjugations.
Polypersonal conjugation
Finite verbs agree in person and number with their nuclear arguments; agreement is through both prefixes and suffixes. Transitive verbs agree with both arguments (ergative and absolutive), whereas intransitive verbs agree with their sole (absolutive) argument.
Verbs distinguish two aspects, perfective, the bare stem, and imperfective, using the suffix -tkə / -tkən / -tkəni. There are five moods, indicative, imperative, optative, potential (marked by the circumfix ta…(ŋ)), and conjunctive (prefix ʔ-/a-).
Monopersonal conjugation
Monopersonal verbs include two declensions, one with the third-person singular in ɣa-...-lin, and the other in n-...-qin.
Impersonal conjugation
For impersonal forms of conjugation include verbal predicate (formed with the circumfix a…ka) and imperative (formed by circumfix ɣa…a/ta). Non-finite forms Impersonal forms include the verbal predicate with the circumfix a…ka, and the imperative in ɣa…a/ta.
Non-finite forms
These include the infinitive, supine, gerunds, and participles.