Research Group on the Structure and Documentation of Inuktitut

The Research Group on the Structure and Documentation of Inuktitut examines the syntactic, morphological, semantic, and phonological properties of the Inuit language, particularly Eastern Canadian dialects, spoken in Nunavut, Nunavik (Arctic Quebec), and in Nunatsiavut (in Labrador), which together are called Inuktitut. We are also interested in other varieties of the language, which include Inuinnaqtun, Sallirmiutun, and Uummartmiutun in the Western Canadian Arctic, Inupiaq in Alaska, and Greenlandic dialects.

Current Group Members

  • Richard Compton (Professor in the Department of Linguistics at UQAM)
  • Abigaël Forest-Leblanc (MA student in Linguistics)
  • Nora Villeneuve (MA student in Linguistics)
  • Yoann Léveillé (MA student in Linguistics)
  • Joannie Bergeron (Undergraduate in Linguistics)
  • Emelie L’Hôte (Undergraduate in Linguistics)
  • Helio Sarrazin-Desjardins (Undergraduate in Linguistics)
  • Emilie Carrier (Undergraduate in Linguistics)
  • Jeanne St-Cyr (Undergraduate in Linguistics)
  • Océane Gauthier (Undergraduate in Linguistics)
  • Sylvie Bouchard (Undergraduate in Linguistics)
  • Lily Chang (MA student in Linguistics)
  • Lance Gray (Undergraduate in Linguistics at Memorial University)

Former Group Members

External Grants

  • Canada Research Chair in Transmission and Knowledge of the Inuit Language (2018-2024)
  • Insight Grant, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) on polysynthesis in Inuktut (2018-2023)
  • Connection Grant, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) for the 21st Inuit Studies Conference (2018)
  • Start-up Grant for New Research Professors, Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC) on agreement in Inuktut (2016-2019)
  • Connection Grant, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) for the 21st WSCLA (2016)
  • Insight Development Grant, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) (2014-2016)

Affiliations

  • Centre for Research on Brain, Language and Music (CRBLM & CRLEC-UQAM)
  • Centre interuniversitaire d’études et de recherches autochtones (CIÉRA)
  • Groupe de recherche interdisciplinaire sur les affirmations autochtones contemporaines (GRIAAC)
  • Institut nordique du Québec (INQ)
  • Montreal Underdocumented Languages Lab (MULL Lab)
  • Canadian Linguistic Association (CLA)
  • Linguistic Society of America (LSA)

Scholarships to Students and Post-Docs

  • FRQSC Postdoctoral Fellowship to Wiliam Johnston (2024-2026)
  • Canada Graduate Scholarship (Master’s), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), to Yoann Léveillé (2021-2022)
  • Master’s Research Scholarship, Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC) to Yoann Léveillé
  • SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowships to Julien Carrier (2021-2022)
  • SSHRC Doctoral Fellowships to Alice Tremblay (2021-2023)
  • Master’s Research Scholarship, Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC) to Marie-Loup Turenne (2017-2018)
  • Canada Graduate Scholarship (Master’s), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), to Marie-Loup Turenne (2017-2018)
  • Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarships Doctoral Scholarship, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), to Matthew Schuurman (2017-2020).

Research Topics

  • Polysynthesis
  • Status of agreement markers
  • Nominal and verbal incorporation
  • Variable word word, scrambling
  • Switch reference
  • Grammatical person features
  • Prosody
  • Mirror principle and morpheme order in words
  • Grammatical description of Inuktitut
  • Grammatical description of Inuinnaqtun

Chris and Marie-Loup at the 20th Congrès d’Études Inuit Studies at Memorial University in St. John’s.

Richard (with Anja Arnhold) at a workshop of the 40th Generative Linguistics in the Old World (GLOW) in Leiden, Netherlands, in 2017.

Students in the research lab.

Chris and Marie-Loup at the Nunavut Research Institute in Iqaluit in 2016.

Richard at the Table ronde de la recherche sur l’imaginaire du Nord, de l’hiver et de l’Arctique at UQAM.

Chris at the 22nd Workshop on Structure and Constituency in Languages of the Americas, at UBC.