Word Classes in Eskimo–Aleut Languages

Abstract It was once claimed that languages of the Eskimo–Aleut family contain just one lexical category: Nouns. The history of this claim is detailed in Sadock (1999) and further discussed in Woodbury (1985) and Mithun (2009, 2017b), among others. In fact, these languages show robust, distinct Noun and Verb categories (in addition to particles) at both the stem and word levels. Here the criteria that distinguish them are presented, then some subtleties reflecting deeper issues of lexical classification are examined, issues emerging from some major diachronic developments. First, the family is described; second, the features distinguishing Nouns and Verbs in the family are enumerated; third, the issue of flexibility is discussed; fourth, lexical subcategories are surveyed; fifth, the extension of nominalization to higher levels of structure is traced. This last step ultimately explains why it might have once been thought that there was just one lexical category.