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10 Derivational morphology<br />
the class marker -a following the passivizing suffix in the infinitive form, and -u<br />
in the perfect form. For instance, compare the verb in (60) (in the active voice)<br />
with the equivalent passivized verb in (61), including the oblique agent (in elative<br />
case).<br />
(60) máná<br />
máná<br />
lä tsiggim<br />
lä tsiggi-m<br />
child\nom.pl be\3pl.prs build-prf<br />
‘Children have built the hut.’<br />
gådev<br />
gåde-v<br />
hut-acc.sg<br />
[pit110518a.28m14s]e<br />
(61) gåhte<br />
gåhte<br />
lä tsiggijduvvum<br />
lä tsiggij-duvvu-m<br />
hut\nom.sg be\3sg.prs build-pass-prf<br />
‘The hut has been built by children.’<br />
mánájst<br />
máná-jst<br />
child-elat.pl<br />
[pit110518a.28m41s]e<br />
Passivization is a valency-decreasing device because the resulting verb is intransitive,<br />
as it only features the patient-like argument as its sole core argument<br />
in nominative case. Note that Svonni (2009: 92) claims, for North <strong>Saami</strong>, that “one<br />
cannot indicate the agent in any way” (my translation) in passive clauses using<br />
the cognate North <strong>Saami</strong> passivizing suffix. <strong>Pite</strong> <strong>Saami</strong> differs significantly from<br />
North <strong>Saami</strong> in this respect, as Ruong – himself a native speaker <strong>of</strong> <strong>Pite</strong> <strong>Saami</strong><br />
– verifies (cf. Ruong 1943: 41). It is very possible that the <strong>Pite</strong> <strong>Saami</strong> strategy <strong>of</strong><br />
placing the agent in an oblique case could be due to extensive language contact<br />
with Swedish, a language which clearly allows the agent in a passivized clause to<br />
be expressed obliquely using a prepositional phrase headed by the preposition av<br />
‘<strong>of</strong>, from’. Indeed, Swedish PPs headed by av in other contexts are best translated<br />
into <strong>Pite</strong> <strong>Saami</strong> as an NP in elative case, the same oblique case in which the agent<br />
NP in a passive <strong>Pite</strong> <strong>Saami</strong> sentence is found.<br />
Some other examples <strong>of</strong> transitive verbs and their passivized equivalents using<br />
-duvv are shown in (62) through (64).<br />
(62) tjåvvde-t → tjåvde-duvva-t ‘be liberated’<br />
untie-inf untie-pass-inf [3233]<br />
(63) dahka-t → daga-duvva-t ‘be made’<br />
make-inf make-pass-inf [pit110331b]e<br />
(64) adne-t → ane-duvva-t ‘be used’<br />
utilize-inf utilize-pass-inf [2682]<br />
There are not sufficient data in the corpus to state any more about passive<br />
derivation, particularly concerning morphophonological effects <strong>of</strong> passivization<br />
206
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