Lesson Plan #2: Aqta i'!

Lesson 2: Aqta i'!

Objective: Students build on introductions, by learning plural endings, learn greetings corresponding to time of day. Also, they should learn the grammatical construction for “what is this” and “this is...”

Vocab:

• Qonoks: morning
• I': day, afternoon, sun
• Bīs: evening
• Sī: night
• Hig-: male (person)
• Qīm, qim-: woman, female (person)
• Dɨ̄l: child
• Haj: and

Grammar:

• Plurals can be formed by adding “-n” for animates, or “-ŋ” for inanimates. For example, Qiman aqtasan “the women are the beautiful ones”, or Qu'ŋ qàŋ “the tents are big”. Following is a chart of plural personal pronouns.

Subject/direct object	Possessive
Ətn	Ətna, na-
Əkn	Əkna, na-
Būŋ	Buŋna, na-

• Ket Demonstratives

Kir (masc.), Kire (fem., inan.), Kine (plural)	This/these right here
Tur, Ture, Tune	That/those at a moderate distance (generic)
Qar, Qare, Qane	That/those far away

To use demonstrative pronouns for people, we should add the words ke't, qim, or dɨl. For example, Ture qim sirakats “that woman is a teacher”.

• New Interrogatives:

Akus Bitse Besa Anáà Anetaŋ

What Who (masc) Who (feminine) Who (either, but defaults to masculine) Who (plural)

Classroom Procedure:

1. Students review greetings and old vocab (10 mins).
2. Teacher models introductions, e.g.
   T: Ture-ke't bitse?
   S1: Ture-ke't (name) or Būd ī (name)
   Students should practice on each other. (5-10 mins).
3. Teacher shows morning, day, and night scenes while saying “ture qonoks”, etc. Teacher should then ask students questions and greet them by time of day, e.g.:
   T: Ture akus?
   S1: Ture qonoks.
   T: Ture akus? Ture sī-du?
   S2: Bə̄n. Ture i'.
   T: E'! Aqta i'!
   S2: Aqta i'.
   (5-10 mins)

So we see that we can greet people by the time of day by adding the word for morning, etc. to aqta. However, these are calques from Russian, and not part of Ket's pre-contact lexicon.

To say “good night” (e.g. when going to bed) we can make the construction qonoks bandinga “see you in the morning”.

Homework: 

Part 1:
Read these Wikipedia articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ket_people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ket_language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Den%C3%A9%E2%80%93Yeniseian_languages

Part 2:
1. What questions do you have so far regarding Ket culture and/or language?
2. Do you support the Dene-Yeniseian hypothesis?  Why or why not?  After detailing your own position, examine the other side.  What evidence do they bring forward?