| Alyutor | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| nəməlʔu | ||||
| Spoken in | Russia | |||
| Region | Kamchatka | |||
| Ethnicity | Alyutors | |||
| Native speakers | 200 (2002 census) | |||
| Language family |
Chukotko-Kamchatkan
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| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-3 | alr | |||
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Alyutor or Alutor is a language of Russia that belongs to the Chukotkan branch of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages.
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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".
Alutor is a polysynthetic language.
| ŋan(.ina) | ulʲlʲaʔu.tku=ʔuttə-k | na-n.illitə-tkə-ni-na… | ||
| that+3PL | walk.into.woods.masked=stick-LOC | LOW.A-hang-IPF-3.SG.A+3P-3PL.P | ||
| 'Those things on a stick, which wear masks, hung ...' | ||||
The morphology is agglutinative, with extensive prefixes and suffixes.
| qəlʲippə | tətu-kki | ɣeqə-masla-ta | a-mal-ka. | |||
| bread+NOM+SG | eat.with.something-INF | ASSOC⟩butter⟨ASSOC | good | |||
| 'Bread (eaten) with butter is excellent.' | ||||||
The argument structure is ergative.
| ə-nannə | ɣəmmə | ina-ɣal-e. | ||
| he-ERG | me+ABS | 1SG.P-walk.past-3SG.A | ||
| 'He walked past me.' | ||||
The word order is variable, and it is difficult to say which is basic. The verb-absolutive orders AVO and VAO are perhaps most common.
| tita·qa | qutkinʲnʲaqu-nak | maŋ.ki·ʔana | ɣa-laʔu-lin | ənnə-ʔən. | ||||
| once | (name)-ERG+SG | somewhere | RES⟩see⟨RES+3SG.P | fishABS+SG | ||||
| 'Once Qutkinnyaqu saw a fish somewhere.' | ||||||||
| ɣa-nvə-lin | qutkinʲnʲaqu-nak | təlɣə-lŋən | ŋan.tiŋ. | |||
| RES⟩poke⟨RES+3SG.P | (name)-ERG+SG | finger-ABS+SG | there | |||
| 'Qutkinnyaqu stuck his finger there.' | ||||||
Alyutor has six vowels, five of which may be long or short. The /ə/ is a schwa, and cannot be stressed.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i iː | u uː | |
| Mid | e eː | ə | o oː |
| Open | a aː |
There are 18 consonants in Alyutor.
| Bilabial | Labio- dental |
Dentalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Epiglottal | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p | t tsʲ | k | q | ʡ | ʔ | ||
| Fricative | v | ɣ | ||||||
| Nasal | m | n nʲ | ŋ | |||||
| Approximant | w | l lʲ | j | |||||
| Trill | r |
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 transfers 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'.
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.
Alyutor parts of speech are noun, adjective, numeral, pronoun, verb, participle, adverb, postpositions, conjunctions, and "particles".
Nouns are inflected for number, case, definiteness, and even 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 in a single affix, suffixes apart from the comitative and associative, which are circumfixes. There are two declinations, taught as three noun classes. The first class are non-human 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 in addition to the absolutive. The third class are the other human nouns; they may be either first or second declension.
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| sg. | du. | pl. | sg. | du. | pl. | |
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| locative |
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| lative |
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| lative |
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| prolative |
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| contactive |
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| causative |
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| equative |
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| comitative |
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| associative |
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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, with an i on nouns ending in a consonant.
| sg. | du. | pl. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person | -j-ɣəm | -muri | -muru |
| 2nd person | -j-ɣət | -turi | -turu |
Alyutor has simple numerals for the numbers one to five, ten, and twenty. All other numbers are compounds based on these numerals.
| ənnan | one |
| ŋitaq | two |
| ŋəruqqə | three |
| ŋəraqqə | four |
| məlləŋin | five |
| ənnanməlləŋ(in) | six (one-five) |
| ŋitaqməlləŋ(in) | seven (two-five) |
| ŋəruqməlləŋ(in) | eight (three-five) |
| ŋəraqməlləŋ(in) | nine (four-five) |
| mənɣətkin | ten |
| mənɣətək ənnan | eleven |
| qəlikkə | twenty (a score) |
| qəlikək ənnan | twenty one |
| ŋəraqmənɣətkin | forty (four tens) |
| ŋəraqmənɣətkin ŋəraqqə | forty four |
| ŋitaqməlləŋin mənɣətkin | seventy (seven tens) |
| mənɣətək mənɣətkin | hundred (ten tens) |
There are finite (conjugated) and non-finite verbs. There are several conjugations.
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 stom, 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 verbs include two declensions, one with the third-person singular in ɣa-...-lin, and the other in n-...-qin.
For non-personal forms of conjugation include verbal predicate (formed with tsirkumfiksa a-...-ka) and imperative (formed by tsirkumfiksa ɣa-... -a/-ta). [edit] Non-finite forms Impersonal forms include the verbal predicate, with the circumfix a-...-ka, and the imperative in ɣa-...-a/-ta.
These include the infinitive, supine, gerunds, and participles.