Central Siberian Yupik Influence on Sirenikski Verbal Inflection

Abstract

AbstractLanguage contact is pervasive in the history of all Eskaleut languages of the Pacific Rim, and the languages show contact effect regardless of typological similarity or degree of relatedness. Moreover, the degree of contact has allowed for the borrowing of features that are generally thought of as relatively impervious to borrowing, including verb inflection. In particular, Sirenikski has been in close contact with the closely related language Central Siberian Yupik, and contact effects on the phonology, prosodic system and lexicon have been well described, however, the verbal inflectional morphology has largely been assumed to be cognate. In this article, I present evidence that some elements of the inflectional paradigm have been borrowed from Central Siberian Yupik.