A grammar of Pite Saami, 2014

5.4 Inflectional classes for nouns
Table 5.18: The Class II consonant gradation pattern and inflectional noun class
suffixes
singular plural
nom wk -Vj str -V
gen str -V str -Vacc
str -V- str -Vill
str -V- str -Viness
str -V- str -Velat
str -V- str -Vcom
str -V- str -Vabess
str -V- str -Vess
wk -V-
5.4.3 Class III
Three features mark nouns in Class III:
• the stem is consonant-final
• the nom.sg form lacks a class suffix
• wk-str grade alignment (when relevant)
This class consists of two subclasses (IIIa and IIIb), as discussed in the following
two sections.
5.4.3.1 Class IIIa
Class IIIa is the more common Class III subclass. It exhibits a nom.sg form which
lacks a class marker and ends in a closed syllable; in this case, the stem-final
consonant is thus the word-final consonant. The paradigms for the nouns sabek 12
‘ski’ and vanás ‘boat’ are provided in Table 5.19 on the next page as examples for
this subclass. The word vanás ‘boat’ is similar to sabek ‘ski’, but is subject to
consonant gradation. Finally, denominal nouns derived by the diminutive suffix -
tj are all in Class IIIa. Table 5.20 on the following page provides a nearly complete
paradigm for guolátj ‘little fish’.
12 In adhering to Pite Saami orthographic conventions, word-final /k/ is spelled with , while
intervocalic /k/ is spelled .
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