Dans une approche qui met à profit les apports de l’anthropologie nord-américaine et de l’ethnolinguistique européenne, la thèse étudie l’activité néologique inuit concertée au Nunavut, appelée taiguusiliurniq. Dans un premier temps, y sont examinés en diachronie les rapports de force linguistiques que les Inuit de l’Arctique oriental canadien ont entretenus au fil des siècles avec les explorateurs, les baleiniers, les marchands, les missionnaires, et enfin l’administration, et qui constituent l’arrière-plan sur lequel se sont arrimés les métiers de la traduction en langue inuit et les débuts de l’institutionnalisation de l’innovation lexicale. La deuxième partie s’intéresse à l’émergence de la terminologie propre à la sphère publique et aux défis que pose sa normalisation sur le plan juridique, technique, linguistique et culturel. La dernière partie est consacrée à un examen minutieux de cette terminologie, alimenté par des données issues d’un travail de compilation lexicale et par la description détaillée d’un atelier de développement terminologique. Sous la forme d’une synthèse, sont mises au jour les bases productives et affixes récurrents, l’adoption des modes de désignation, les questions liées au découpage du réel et enfin les caractéristiques et défis actuels de la langue inuit en tant que langue spécialisée, dans un contexte où la parole contribue à pérenniser les rapports d’autorité et de pouvoir. Élaboré sous la forme d’une matrice, le lexique analytique trilingue (inuktitut-français-anglais), placé en annexe, constitue un outil d’analyse voué à nourrir la réflexion d’ordre lexicologique engagée par les professionnels de la langue inuit au Nunavut. Mots clés : Inuit, inuktitut, ethnolinguistique, néologie, lexicologie, parole, autorité, pouvoir, Nunavut, Arctique canadien / Using North American anthropology and European ethnolinguistics in a combined approach, this thesis studies Inuit neological activity undertaken in concerted action, called taiguusiliurniq. The first part examines diachronically the relations of power as regards language maintained over centuries between the Inuit of Eastern Arctic Canada and explorers, whalers, merchants, missionaries and finally with the administration; all of these making up the background on which arose the professions of interpreters and translators working with Inuktitut, along with the early days of institutionalized neology. The second part deals with the emergence of the terminology specific to the public sphere and to the challenges of its standardization in legal, technical, linguistic and cultural terms. The last part offers a careful examination of this terminology, fueled by data extracted from the creation of a lexicon and by a detailed description of a terminology development workshop. In a synthetic format, recurrent verb and noun roots along with affixes are highlighted, as well as choices regarding modes of designation, and the current challenges of Inuit language as a specialized language in a context where speech plays a part in the perpetuation of the relations of power and authority as regards language. Developed as a matrix, the trilingual analytical lexicon (Inuktitut-French-English) placed in the appendix is designed as an analytical tool meant to feed the lexicological reflection that Nunavut Inuit language professionals are engaged in. Keywords: Inuit, Inuktitut, ethnolinguistics, neology, lexicology, speech, authority, power, Nunavut, Canadian Arctic

Ce mémoire rapporte une étude en acquisition du français langue seconde (L2) examinant la présence des catégories fonctionnelles dans les grammaires d'apprenants inuits débutants étudiant au primaire, à travers l'apparition des clitiques sujets. Selon la théorie linguistique, il existe un lien très fort entre les clitiques et les catégories fonctionnelles. De plus, les clitiques sont présents en français, mais absents en inuttitut. Les données, provenant d'entrevues réalisées avec les participants, sont compatibles avec l'hypothèse « Minimal Trees » (Vainikka & Young-Scholten 1994), selon laquelle les catégories fonctionnelles ne font pas partie des grammaires initiales. Les clitiques émergent en effet tardivement, plus tard que chez les participants d'études antérieures. Ceci peut s'expliquer par le contexte scolaire de la communauté inuite où la recherche fut réalisée. L'émergence des clitiques indique la présence de catégories fonctionnelles dans les grammaires sous-jacentes, dont ils pourraient déclencher l'apparition, grâce à l'action conjointe de la Grammaire Universelle.

This thesis explores the properties of adjectives and adverbs in Inuit (Eskimo-Aleut), with focus on the Inuktitut dialect group. While the literature on Eskimoan languages has claimed that they lack these categories, I present syntactic evidence for two classes of adjectives, one verb-like and another strictly attributive, as well as a class of adverbs. These categories are then employed to diagnose more general properties of the language including headedness, word-formation, adjunct licensing, and semantic composition. In the first half of Chapter 2 I demonstrate that verb-like adjectives can be differentiated from verbs insofar as only the former are compatible with a particular copular construction involving modals. Similarly, verb-like adjectives can combine with a negative marker that is incompatible with genuine verbs. This contrast is further corroborated by an inflectional distinction between verb-like adjectives and verbs in the Siglitun dialect. A second class of strictly-attributive adjectives is argued for on the basis of stacking, variable order, optionality, and compositionality. The second half of the chapter examines semantic restrictions on membership in the strictly-attributive class whereby only adjectives with subsective and privative denotations are attested. These restrictions are explained by the proposal that Inuit lacks a rule of Predicate Modification, with the result that only adjectives with semantic types capable of composing with nouns via Functional Application can compose directly with nominals. Furthermore, to explain why this restriction does not extend to verb-like adjectives it is proposed that when these modify nominals, they are adjoined DP appositives and compose via Potts’s (2005) rule of Conventional Implicature Application. In Chapter 3 I argue for a class of adverbs, presenting evidence including degree modification, variable ordering, speaker-oriented meanings, and the ability to modify additional categories. Finally, data from adverb ordering is used to compare syntactically oriented and semantically oriented approaches to adjunct licensing and verbal-complex formation. I present arguments in favour of a right-headed analysis of Inuit in which the relative position of adverbs inside polysynthetic verbal-complexes is primarily determined by semantics, supporting Ernst (2002), contra cartographic approaches such as Cinque (1999).

This thesis classifies Inuit place names and analyses their meanings to reveal Harvaqtuurmiut land-use history on the Harvaqtuuq [Kazan River], Nunavut Territory. The author collected previously unrecorded toponyms from the territory of this Caribou Inuit society, the Harvaqtuuq [Kazan River], and corroborated the data of earlier researchers. The Harvaqtuuq landscape was organized from foci of subsistence activities by application of Inuktitut geographical terminology and concepts. These foci moved over time and betray changing land-use patterns. The Harvaqtuuq was a frontier for Inuit, due to the need to depend on caribou, and due to the conflict engendered by overlapping Dene occupation. The presence of anthroponyms, and the paucity of pan-Inuit myths in the landscape allow for the speculative interpretation that the names support current theories of a recent arrival of Inuit to the Harvaqtuuq .

This thesis explores the properties of adjectives and adverbs in Inuit (Eskimo-Aleut), with focus on the Inuktitut dialect group. While the literature on Eskimoan languages has claimed that they lack these categories, I present syntactic evidence for two classes of adjectives, one verb-like and another strictly attributive, as well as a class of adverbs. These categories are then employed to diagnose more general properties of the language including headedness, word-formation, adjunct licensing, and semantic composition. In the first half of Chapter 2 I demonstrate that verb-like adjectives can be differentiated from verbs insofar as only the former are compatible with a particular copular construction involving modals. Similarly, verb-like adjectives can combine with a negative marker that is incompatible with genuine verbs. This contrast is further corroborated by an inflectional distinction between verb-like adjectives and verbs in the Siglitun dialect. A second class of strictly-attributive adjectives is argued for on the basis of stacking, variable order, optionality, and compositionality. The second half of the chapter examines semantic restrictions on membership in the strictly-attributive class whereby only adjectives with subsective and privative denotations are attested. These restrictions are explained by the proposal that Inuit lacks a rule of Predicate Modification, with the result that only adjectives with semantic types capable of composing with nouns via Functional Application can compose directly with nominals. Furthermore, to explain why this restriction does not extend to verb-like adjectives it is proposed that when these modify nominals, they are adjoined DP appositives and compose via Potts’s (2005) rule of Conventional Implicature Application. In Chapter 3 I argue for a class of adverbs, presenting evidence including degree modification, variable ordering, speaker-oriented meanings, and the ability to modify additional categories. Finally, data from adverb ordering is used to compare syntactically oriented and semantically oriented approaches to adjunct licensing and verbal-complex formation. I present arguments in favour of a right-headed analysis of Inuit in which the relative position of adverbs inside polysynthetic verbal-complexes is primarily determined by semantics, supporting Ernst (2002), contra cartographic approaches such as Cinque (1999).

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In many languages, antipassive morphology is comprised of aspectual morphology (Polinsky 2008). This thesis presents an analysis of the syntax and semantics of antipassives in Inuktitut by exploring the link between aspectual morphology and antipassive morphology. It resolves the longstanding question as to the factors governing the distribution of the antipassive morpheme, showing that the presence of the antipassive morpheme is determined by the meaning of the construction, i.e. it does not merely change the grammatical function. It is proposed that the antipassive construction has imperfective viewpoint in contrast to the ergative construction. Antipassive morphology is obligatory with punctual telic verbs, i.e. achievements, which are verbs that have perfective viewpoint by default. Antipassive morphology is thus necessary to convey imperfective viewpoint for verbs that are by default perfective. Using a modified Reichenbachian (Reichenbach 1947) framework, it is shown that imperfective viewpoint does not allow for telic interpretations. Instead, punctuality determines the types of viewpoint, which coincide with the aspectual meaning of the antipassive marker. Viewpoint contrasts in Inuktitut are encoded not only in morphology but in changes of case and agreement configurations. They are derived using a version of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 2008). Imperfective viewpoint can either be default, in which case there is inherent case on the internal argument, or derived through the addition of antipassive morphology, in which case the construction closely parallels a nominative-accusative structure. Perfective viewpoint is encoded through absolutive case on the internal argument, either in an ergative construction or in a canonical intransitive construction with unaccusative verbs. The thesis provides insight into the relation between case-agreement configurations and aspectual contrasts in language and the nature of those aspectual contrasts. It also provides a new approach to the relation between lexical aspect and viewpoint by considering the role of punctuality.

In many languages, antipassive morphology is comprised of aspectual morphology (Polinsky 2008). This thesis presents an analysis of the syntax and semantics of antipassives in Inuktitut by exploring the link between aspectual morphology and antipassive morphology. It resolves the longstanding question as to the factors governing the distribution of the antipassive morpheme, showing that the presence of the antipassive morpheme is determined by the meaning of the construction, i.e. it does not merely change the grammatical function. It is proposed that the antipassive construction has imperfective viewpoint in contrast to the ergative construction. Antipassive morphology is obligatory with punctual telic verbs, i.e. achievements, which are verbs that have perfective viewpoint by default. Antipassive morphology is thus necessary to convey imperfective viewpoint for verbs that are by default perfective. Using a modified Reichenbachian (Reichenbach 1947) framework, it is shown that imperfective viewpoint does not allow for telic interpretations. Instead, punctuality determines the types of viewpoint, which coincide with the aspectual meaning of the antipassive marker. Viewpoint contrasts in Inuktitut are encoded not only in morphology but in changes of case and agreement configurations. They are derived using a version of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 2008). Imperfective viewpoint can either be default, in which case there is inherent case on the internal argument, or derived through the addition of antipassive morphology, in which case the construction closely parallels a nominative-accusative structure. Perfective viewpoint is encoded through absolutive case on the internal argument, either in an ergative construction or in a canonical intransitive construction with unaccusative verbs. The thesis provides insight into the relation between case-agreement configurations and aspectual contrasts in language and the nature of those aspectual contrasts. It also provides a new approach to the relation between lexical aspect and viewpoint by considering the role of punctuality.