A grammar of Pite Saami, 2014

12 Overview of the syntax of sentences
In describing Pite Saami clauses, it is useful to begin with basic clauses that contain
a full predicate and its arguments, complements and/or adjuncts, before moving
on to describe complex clauses which consist of two or more clauses linked
to one another. Therefore, basic clauses are described in Chapter 13, including
declarative, interrogative and imperative clauses. Chapter 14 then deals with
complex clauses, covering coordination and subordination.
However, in order to better understand the syntax of sentences, it is sensible to
begin with two general discussions that provide a framework for understanding
the syntactic descriptions that follow. The first of these, in §12.1 below, covers
grammatical relations in Pite Saami. This leads to the second discussion in §12.2,
which concerns clause-level constituent ordering, and the likely role that information
structure plays in determining this.
12.1 Grammatical relations
Pite Saami is an accusative language because the only argument of an intransitive
verb (S) is marked in the same way as the most-agent-like argument of a
transitive verb (A): by the nominative case. The most-patient-like argument of a
transitive verb (P) is marked differently: by the accusative case. This is illustrated
by the following examples, with an intransitive verb in (1) and a (mono-)transitive
verb in (2).
(1) så mån
så mån
so
(2) dä
dä
tjielka
tjielka
1sg.nom sled\gen.sg
‘So I lay in the sled.’
sinne vällahiv
sinne vällahi-v
in lie-1sg.pst
almatj
almatj
biejaj
bieja-j
risev
rise-v
then person\nom.sg put-3sg.prs stick-acc.sg
‘Then one places the stick like this.’
dále nåvte
dále nåvte
now so
[pit100404.303]
[pit100404.216]