Saqqummersitaq

The syntactic combination potential of a Greenlandic verb may be epitomized by the concept of syntactic verb type. It is argued that there are four syntactic Greenlandic verb types. Three of those groups of verbs may be inflected in two different ways: Either they agree with the subject alone or with both the subject and the object. Hence, the Greenlandic verb may show monopersonal or bipersonal agreement. The fourth group of verbs have only monopersonal agreement. Most Greenlandic verbs represent situations from the perspective of either an agent or a patient, but some verbs involve only one actant which may therefore be termed ”soloist”. The voice of the verb describes the relationship between the situation expressed by the verb and the verb’s actants. While there is no unequivocal morphological marker of voice in Greenlandic, it turns out that the voice of the verb may be identified by the verb type combined with its agreement. In this way, four voices turn up: Two describe the situation from the perspective of the agent, one involves only a soloist, and one voice shows the perspective of the patient.