West Greenlandic Eskimo, a part of the Eskimo-Aleut language family spoken all across the Arctic, is primarily found among the Native peoples of central west Greenland. In this highly nuanced study of West Greenlandic, linguist Anna Berge examines how the speaker’s role affects syntactic structures within discourse. Also included are transcripts of conversations with fluent Native speakers, providing a practical context in which to examine these grammatical questions.

This study was the winner of the prestigious Mary R. Haas Award, presented annually by the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, the highest award given in the study of Native languages.