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A grammar of Pite Saami, 2014

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8 Verbs<br />

Just as with nouns, inflectional categories for verbs can be expressed by suffixes<br />

and by non-linear morphology, and frequently a combination <strong>of</strong> both. In the following,<br />

§8.4.1 focusses on inflectional suffixes, while §8.4.2 goes on to describe<br />

the behavior <strong>of</strong> non-linear morphology found in stem-consonant alternations<br />

(consonant gradation), stem-vowel alternations (umlaut), and vowel harmony.<br />

The final section (8.5) then uses the various morphophonological inflectional patterns<br />

found across verb paradigms to posit five preliminary inflectional classes<br />

for verbs.<br />

8.4.1 Inflectional suffixes for verbs<br />

The portmanteau suffixes expressing agreement in person and number as well as<br />

tense or mood in finite verbs are listed in Table 8.3. In this table, if only one suffix<br />

is given in a slot, then it is found in all inflectional classes. When more than one<br />

suffix is included in a slot, then the first allomorph is for inflectional classes I,<br />

II and III, the second allomorph for class IV, and the third allomorph for class<br />

V verbs. The suffixes for the non-finite infinitive, connegative and perfect verb<br />

forms are included here and in the following sections because they are common<br />

verb forms in the corpus and particularly useful in recognizing patterns in verb<br />

paradigms.<br />

Table 8.3: Inflectional verb suffixes<br />

sg du pl<br />

prs 1 st -v -n/-jin/-n -p<br />

2 nd - -bähten/-bähten/-hpen -ähtet/-bähtet/-hpit<br />

3 rd -/-ja/- -ba -/-je/-<br />

pst 1 st -v/-jiv/-jiv -jmen -jmä/-jme/-jme<br />

2 nd -/-je/-je -jden -jdä/-jde/-jde<br />

3 rd -j -jga -n/-jin/-n<br />

imp 2 nd - -n/n/a/-hten -t/n/a/-htet<br />

inf -t conneg -<br />

prf -m<br />

8.4.1.1 Verbal suffixes and syncretism<br />

Several <strong>of</strong> the verbal inflectional suffixes, considered by themselves, are homophonous:<br />

160

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