BOAS] HANDBOOK OP AMERICAN INDIAN LANGUAGES 987 



§ 5. Changes of Dental and Labial Consonants 



tyn as terminal sounds: e. g., 



West Greenland iput Baffin land ipiin oar 



West GreenlandV(/>M^ Smith sound apun snow on the 



ground 

 West Greenland guilt Smith sound qolin ten 



West Greenland qamutit North Alaska qamotin (Thal- 



bitzer I, 225) sledge 

 West Greenland ayut Mackenzie river ayiin man, 



male 



n takes the place of t at the end of words in all the dialects except 

 those of Labrador and West Greenland, but including that of 

 Smith sound, though terminal t may occur sporadically in most 

 of the dialects.^ The n may have originated through the nasali- 

 zation of t, corresponding with the shifting of l'>y. 



We see this shift in the Northwest Greenland dialect, too, in some 

 instances: 



hiJcJcun ul'o who are they; soon n'Jco what are they. Kil^Jcun and 

 soon are special forms of kikkut and soot (in the singular ^vVia 

 WHO, and sima what). 



The same shift may have stamped the declension of nouns in the 

 plural, since the suffixes in the oblique cases are added to a 

 nominal plural stem ending in n instead of t; e. g., 



qaqqat mountains; qaqqanut to the mountains; qaqqane in, on, the 

 mountains (but in the singular qaqqairmt^ qaqqamef 



p > fn. This shift is of rare occurrence now in Greenland. It may 

 occasionally take place in the relative (or genitive) juxtaposi- 

 tion of two nouns, the latter of which begins with a vowel (cf. 

 Egede, "Grammar," p. 2, "^ finale mutatur in J/", sequente 

 voce a vocali incipiente" [this B means p]\ e. g., 

 iLLiim isertarFia the entrance of the house (instead of iLLup) 

 The same shift is attested hy records from other dialects; e. g., 

 West Greenland aap yes; Ammassalik acnn or eem in aamila^ 

 eemila yes, certainly; Cape York eem yes 



pin Baffin land the old pronunciation of men was t; that of women and of younger men is n (see 

 p. 985).— F. B.] 



2 In some irregular plurals these suffixes, -n ut -we, really seem to be added to the full plural form ; e. g., 

 Mkkxit WHO, plural kikkunnut {<kikkutniit) to whom, kikkiinne (<kikkutne) in, at whom (plural). 

 The above-mentioned jegular endings may have been formed after the analogy of these "irregular " 

 ones. 



§5 



