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A grammar of Pite Saami, 2014

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13 Basic clauses<br />

(1) almatj<br />

almatj<br />

usjut<br />

usjut<br />

person\nom.sg think\3sg.prs<br />

‘One thinks, and…’<br />

ja…<br />

ja<br />

and<br />

[pit100404.172]<br />

(2) mån<br />

mån<br />

tjájmav<br />

tjájma-v<br />

1sg.nom laugh-1sg.prs<br />

‘I laugh.’ [pit100323a.005]e<br />

(3) dáj<br />

d-á-j<br />

Skaile<br />

Skaile<br />

ello<br />

ello<br />

såkoj<br />

såko-j<br />

dem-prox-gen.pl Skaile\gen.pl reindeer.herd\nom.sg drown-3sg.pst<br />

‘The Skaile family’s reindeer herd drowned.’ [pit0906_Ahkajavvre_b.002]<br />

13.1.1.1 Clauses with a passive verb<br />

When a transitive verb is passivized, 1 its valency is reduced, and it becomes intransitive.<br />

In this, the patient is the subject <strong>of</strong> the verb complex, and therefore<br />

marked by nominative case; the agent may be left out. This is illustrated by the<br />

pair <strong>of</strong> elicited examples in (4) and (5), in which the former is a transitive clause<br />

in active voice, and the latter is an intransitive clause in passive voice.<br />

(4) 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 />

(5) dat<br />

d-a-t<br />

lä<br />

lä<br />

dem-dist-nom.sg be\3sg.prs<br />

‘That (hut) was built.’<br />

gådev<br />

gåde-v<br />

hut-acc.sg<br />

tsiggiduvvum<br />

tsiggi-duvvu-m<br />

build-pass-prf<br />

[pit110518a.28m14s]e<br />

[pit110518a.27m41s]e<br />

Similarly, the example from a narrative in (6) presents an intransitive passive<br />

construction.<br />

1 Transitive verbs can be passivized using the derivational suffix -duvv; cf. §10.2.5 on derivational<br />

morphology and §8.3 on inflectional morphology for passives.<br />

232

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