A grammar of Pite Saami, 2014

5 Nominals I: Nouns
Table 5.6: The inflectional paradigm for the noun bärrgo ‘meat’
singular plural
nom bärrgo biergo
gen biergo biergoj
acc biergov biergojd
ill bärrgoj biergojda
iness biergon biergojn
elat biergost biergojst
com biergojn biergo
abess biergodak biergodahta
ess
bärrgon
biergojd is marked for case/number by the weak bierg- stem and the -jd suffix
simultaneously, and the ill.sg form bärrgoj is marked by the strong bärrg- stem
and the -j suffix. The most obvious evidence that the choice of stem allomorph
is morphologically meaningful can be found in a comparison of the nom.sg form
bärrgo and the nom.pl 10 form biergo. These forms differ exclusively in the choice
of the strong versus the weak stem allomorph and in the choice of umlaut. Thus,
the nom.sg form bärrgo is marked for case/number by the fact that the stem is in
the strong grade and features the vowel ä, while the nom.pl stem is in the weak
grade and features the vowel ie.
This pattern of non-linear case/number marking throughout the paradigm for
bärrgo is illustrated in Table 5.7 on the facing page. Here, two patterns are manifest:
the forms for nom.sg, ill.sg and ess show one pattern, while all other
case/number combinations exhibit the other pattern. This alignment of stem allomorph
selection is more or less prevalent throughout Pite Saami noun paradigms
whenever stem allomorphy is a part of a noun’s inflectional paradigm. Note, however,
that not every noun undergoes consonant gradation and/or umlaut; instead,
their presence are determined by the phonological form of a noun. Consonant
gradation is described in detail in §4.1.2.1, and umlaut in §4.1.2.2; some examples
of nouns with consonant gradation and umlaut alternations are shown in
Table 5.8 on the next page and Table 5.9 on page 98, respectively.
10 As the nom.pl form is always syncretic with the gen.sg form, a comparison of the latter with
the nom.sg form would be equally insightful.
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