16 Sila piuppat

Inuktut has a series of endings to talk about events that have not yet happened:

Depending on the context, these endings can be translated in English as "when something happens..." or "if something happens..."

You will notice that these endings are very similar to those used to express the idea of “because”:

uqaala - to call someone on the phone

* -guni, and -gutik can only be used when the subject of the verb they are attached to is the same person who is the subject of the verb in the main sentence:

This sentence only works if the person who is coming is the same person who will be able to go dancing.

If, on the other hand, we wanted to say:

If Ilisapi comes, Ani will be able to go dancing

we would have to say:

Ilisapii qaippat, Ani mumiriarunnarniaqtuq.

Adding these affixes to roots ending in -q:
The basic endings that begin with g- change to r-. The last consonant of the root is deleted:

The basic endings that begin with p- change to q-.

Adding these affixes to roots ending in -t:
The basic endings that begin with g- change to k-. The last consonant of the root also changes to -k:

The basic endings that begin with -p are unchanged.  They delete the last consonant of the root:

Inuktut speakers are precise when talking about where things are located.  There is a long list of locations to master.  The first thing to remember is that there are different workds to indicate a person or objects is in a specific spot versus a general area:

There are no set rules that will help you to decide when to use one term over the other. A lot depends on context. For example, both uvani / maani could refer to very large areas:

or they could each refer to much smaller spaces:

 The best advice is to learn these terms as pairs and then listen carefully to fluent speakers to hear how they are used in coversation.

2. These locational words will often be heard with the prefix ta- which indicates that a location has already been mentioned or implied in the conversation:

3. Note that all of the terms in the table above end with the affix -ni , meaning that the person/object described is in or at a place.

To talk about motion towards a specific spot we replace the -ni ending with -unga:

4. If we replace the ending with -anngat, we can talk about motion away from a place:.

5. And, if we replace the ending with -(u)una, we can talk about motion through a space: