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Inuit dialects with palatalization all distinguish between “strong i” and “weak i”: instances of surface [i] that cause palatalization and those that do not, respectively. All dialects that have completely lost this contrast also lack palatalization. Why are there no /i, a, u/ dialects in which all instances of surface [i] trigger palatalization? We propose that this typological gap can be explained using a contrastivist analysis whereby only contrastive features can be phonologically active, palatalization is triggered by [coronal], and contrastive features are assigned in an order placing [low] and [labial] ahead of [coronal]. In a three-vowel inventory only [low] and [labial] are contrastive, while in the four-vowel inventory [coronal] must also be contrastive to distinguish strong and weak i. It follows from these assumptions that [i] can trigger palatalization only if it is in contrast with a fourth vowel.

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This paper examines the nature of person complementarity in Eastern Canadian Inuktitut (Eskimo-Aleut), arguing that despite its apparent patterning as a Person Case Constraint (PCC) effect, it is not due to the presence of a defective intervener blocking person agreement with a lower argument, as is often the case in other languages. Instead, the observed effect is caused by a defective or missing person probe on C that cannot value local person features on absolutive arguments. Given the use of the PCC as a diagnostic for differentiating clitics and agreement, this result has implications for the proper identification of φ-marking in Inuktitut.

This chapter provides an overview of ergativity in Inuktitut, a dialect group of the Inuit language (Eskimo-Aleut), spoken in the Eastern Canadian Arctic. The various manifestations of ergativity in the language are examined, including the ergative alignment of case assignment as well as verbal agreement morphology. Evidence for absolutive case being structural, as opposed to a morphological default, is presented using evidence from ditransitives and causatives. Bittner and Hale’s (1996a,b) influential account of ergativity in West Greenlandic is discussed and several points of their analysis are shown to be problematic as applied to Inuktitut. The ergative organization of verbal agreement and its origin in possessor agreement is also examined. Finally, the use of the antipassive construction as a type of differential object marking to indicate an indefinite or non-specific object is presented and proposals linking antipassive marking and aspect are considered.