78 



In [егуэгАОцо] . then, two different words coincide in tlie 

 Upernavik dialect; it means both: "to hit the mark" lin shooting) 

 and "to wash it"; the latter iuis the form [ер'дг/що] in the 

 neighboring dialect to the south. 



iS'as al i zat ion, constant or occasional, frequently sets in 

 in combination with these positions of the soft palate, except 

 in the case of p. 



When two or more r-sounds meet around intervening 

 vowels, the whole sound-group may easily be modified by a 

 mild degree of nasalization so that it gets to sound snuffled, 



as in : 



[more-vsif] ^ \Htrere-ra))ie]^ 



This nasalization seems to be merely a consequence of the 

 power of inertia. When the >'-friclion takes place loosely and 

 feebly, the back of the tongue fails to shove the soft palate all 

 the way up against the rear of the pharynx and close the nose- 

 passage. 



The positions of articulation of the q- and /'-sounds are in 

 reality closely related to the open position of the soft palate 

 which produces nasalization, a fact which is also apparent from 

 the analphabetical symbols for the positions: q = yO^,r = y2^^ 

 nasalization = 02^" or 3''. where к indicates the corresponding 

 points of contact or approximation on the soft palate and on 

 the back of the tongue. 



It is therefore worth noticing that whereas consonant 

 combinations otherwise are pretty rare in Greenlandic, yet the 

 r-sound frequently stands before a nasal consonant. In these 

 groups, the r becomes nasalized (the last part of the sound at 

 all events), and in fact not only the r, but very often the pre- 

 ceding vowel too, as in: 



' a grindstone ' after he had eaten. 



