Lawrence D. Kaplan

Consonant Alternation in Inupiaq Eskimo

Several types of consonant alternation are very much in evidence throughout Inupiaq or Eastern Eskimo. The most frequent and regular alternation processes are conditioned by a segment adjacent to the alternating consonant, namely, the assimilation of one consonant to another and the palatalization or assibilation of alveolar consonants following the vowel i when it is a reflex of Proto-Eskimo *i.2 Of less evident motivation, and for that all the more interesting, is a series of alternations which can be attributed to an interaction of processes of gemination and consonant gradation. Here, I shall describe these phenomena as they occur in North Alaskan Inupiaq Eskimo, briefly review past theories intended to account for them, and offer my own analysis of the data at hand.3

Consonant Assimilation in Inupiaq Eskimo

Proceedings of the 4th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1978), pp. 352-359