Inuit Grammar - Fourth Person Inflection

Fourth Person Inflection

In secondary clauses, third person inflexions must make a distinction between instances where the two clauses have the same subject and those where the subject is different. In English, the sentence "He is leaving because he is tired" is ambiguous unless you know whether or not the two "he"'s refer to different people. In Inuktitut, in contrast, this situation is clearly marked:

Aullaqtuq taqagama.

aullaq-	+	-tuq		taqa-	+	-gama
to leave	+	3rd pers. sg. non-specific		to be tired	+	3rd pers. sg. non-specific causative

He₁ is leaving because he₁ is tired

Aullaqtuq taqangmat.

aullaq-	+	-tuq		taqa-	+	-ngmat
to leave	+	3rd pers. sg. non-specific		to be tired	+	4th pers. sg. non-specific causative

He₁ is leaving because he₂ is tired

The set of suffixes used to indicate the other third person is sometimes called the third person different, but is also often called the fourth person. This additional grammatical person is a pervasive feature of Inuktitut.