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calingssagtuq .to.no.particular.end
 

  1. calingssagtuq
    cali-ngssag-tu-q

    work-to.V.to.no.particular.end'-I-3
    `s/he is puttering around'
  2. qimugtengirta'rrlugaq
    qimugta-ngirta'rrlugaq

    dog-good.old.N
    `good old dog'
  3. nayirrsurtuq
    nayiq-ssur-tu-q

    seal-to.hunt.N-I-3
    `he is hunting seals'

ex search for “linguistics” + “puttering”,
initially yielding snippets only from Santa Barbara Papers in Linguistics vols 7-8 (1996) : link
but after some thrashing about to
Steven Lasswell, “The Alternation of Verbal Mood in Yupik Eskimo Narrative,” ibid. (vol. 7) “Prosody, Grammar, and Discourse in Central Alaskan Yup’ik” : 64-97 : link (pdf)
 

  1. from introduction to the volume (by Marianne Mithun) —
    “Central Alaskan Yup’ik (CAY) is a language of the Eskimo-Aleut family, spoken by around 10,000 people in southwestern Alaska.”
  2. Yupik (the people; including their difficult history vis-à-vis Russians and U.S.)
    wikipedia : link
  3. Central Alaskan Yup’ik (the language)
    wikipedia : link
  4. Yupik languages
    wikipedia : link
     

from Lasswell —
“a polysynthetic language with ergative-absolutive case marking and split syntactic patterns... Intervening between base and ending can be one or more derivational postbases that modify the meaning of the base, as well as potentially nominalizing or verbalizing it...”

The three passages above (of five in total) follow, as introductory examples.
 

10 July 2023