06.09.2021 Views

A grammar of Pite Saami, 2014

A grammar of Pite Saami, 2014

A grammar of Pite Saami, 2014

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

7 Adjectivals<br />

(7) dat<br />

d-a-t<br />

tjábba<br />

tjábba<br />

máhtta<br />

máhtta<br />

sáme<br />

sáme<br />

beautiful\nom.sg can\3sg.prs <strong>Saami</strong>\gen.sg<br />

dem-dist-nom.sg<br />

gielav<br />

giela-v<br />

language-acc.sg<br />

‘That beautiful one can (speak) the <strong>Saami</strong> language.’ (referring to a girl)<br />

[pit090930a.148]e<br />

As the host <strong>of</strong> case/number inflection, such adjectives look morphologically<br />

like nouns. However, syntactically, these adjectives remain adjectives for two<br />

reasons. First, they can be modified by adverbs <strong>of</strong> grade, while nouns cannot<br />

be. Second, they generally have a referential antecedent that is the bearer <strong>of</strong> the<br />

property they denote. 2 Semantically, they do not denote an entity (as nouns do),<br />

but a property, as with all adjectives. A further example is provided in (8). Here,<br />

the choice <strong>of</strong> the attributive adjective form tjábba ‘beautiful’ (as opposed to the<br />

corresponding predicate adjective form tjábbe) indicates that this is indeed an<br />

elliptical NP construction, and not predication.<br />

(8) lä<br />

lä<br />

huj tjábba,<br />

huj tjábba<br />

be\3sg.prs quite beautiful\nom.sg<br />

lä<br />

lä<br />

be\3sg.prs<br />

jävvja<br />

jävvja<br />

white.reindeer\nom.sg<br />

dat,<br />

dat<br />

d-a-t<br />

d-a-t<br />

dem-dist-nom.sg dem-dist-nom.sg<br />

‘It is a quite beautiful one, it, it is a white reindeer.’ (referring to a<br />

reindeer)<br />

[pit100405b.036-037]<br />

7.2 Predicative adjectives<br />

While attributive adjectives form the head <strong>of</strong> an attributive AP embedded in an<br />

NP, predicative adjectives form the head <strong>of</strong> an AP which is the complement <strong>of</strong><br />

the copular verb årrot ‘be’ and ascribe a property to the subject referent. In (9)<br />

and (10), for instance, the predicative adjective corresponding to the attributive<br />

adjective tjähppis ‘black’ (cf. the example in (1) above) is tjáhpat.<br />

2 The quantifier aktak ‘none, any’ can be used in an elliptic NP without a referential antecedent;<br />

cf. §7.7, specifically example (37).<br />

130

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!