A grammar of Pite Saami, 2014

8 Verbs
these categories are described in §8.2.1, §8.2.2 and §8.2.3, respectively. Syntactic
aspects of clauses involving these non-finite forms are described in §13.1.5 on
declarative clauses with more than one verb form, as well as in §14.2 on clausal
subordination. Table 8.1 summarizes the morphological and syntactic features of
these four non-finite forms, while examples of verbs in these forms are provided
in Table 8.2.
Table 8.1: Common non-finite verb forms and their features
morphological features syntactic features
infinitive suffix -t, strong grade co-occurs with auxiliary galgat
for future; complement to lexical
verbs like sihtat ‘want’, állget ‘begin’,
etc.
connegative no suffix, weak grade co-occurs with negation verb
perfect suffix -m, strong grade co-occurs with auxiliary årrot ‘be’
progressive suffix -min, strong grade co-occurs with auxiliary årrot ‘be’
Table 8.2: Some non-finite verb forms
infinitive connegative perfect progressive
tjájbmat tjájma tjájbmam tjájbmamin ‘laugh’
viessot vieso viessom viessomin ‘live’
båhtet både båhtem båhtemin ‘come’
ságastit ságaste ságastam ságastamin ‘speak’
bargatjit bargatje bargatjam bargatjemin ‘work a little’
The literature on Saami languages often treats non-finite verb forms in addition
to those mentioned above. These include the verb genitive, verb abessive
or gerunds, for instance. 3 For Pite Saami, Lehtiranta (1992: 95–106) describes
the morphological form a number of such non-finite forms, 4 while Lagercrantz
(1926) does not describe such verb forms.
With this in mind, it is certainly plausible that Pite Saami has other non-finite
3 Cf. Sammallahti 1998: 103–104 and Svonni 2009: 67–73 for North Saami, or Spiik 1989: 104–111
for Lule Saami.
4 These non-finite forms are also included in the verb paradigms in Lehtiranta (1992: 150–155).
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