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A grammar of Pite Saami, 2014

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13 Basic clauses<br />

13.2 Interrogative clauses<br />

Constituent interrogative clauses in <strong>Pite</strong> <strong>Saami</strong> are consistently marked as such<br />

syntactically, and thus are distinct from declarative clauses. Polar interrogative<br />

clauses, on the other hand, do not differ significantly from declarative clauses,<br />

although some syntactic constructions are more common than others. The following<br />

sections deal first with constituent interrogative clauses, then polar interrogative<br />

clauses in more detail.<br />

13.2.1 Constituent interrogative clauses<br />

Constituent interrogative clauses are the only type <strong>of</strong> independent clause in <strong>Pite</strong><br />

<strong>Saami</strong> which is consistently marked syntactically as a clause type. Specifically,<br />

every constituent interrogative clause is marked as such by having an interrogative<br />

word or phrase in clause-initial position. When it is an interrogative pronoun,<br />

it inflects for case and number consistent with its grammatical role in the<br />

clause (as with any pronoun), while the humanness <strong>of</strong> its (expected) referent determines<br />

the choice <strong>of</strong> the root. 14 Some examples can be found in (43) through<br />

(46).<br />

(43) mav<br />

ma-v<br />

dån<br />

dån<br />

what-acc.sg 2sg.nom<br />

‘What are you saying?’<br />

hålå?<br />

hålå<br />

say\2sg.prs<br />

[pit090519.329]<br />

(44) majd<br />

ma-jd<br />

dä<br />

dä<br />

viehkedi?<br />

viehkedi<br />

what-acc.pl then help\2sg.pst<br />

‘What then did you help (with)?’<br />

(45) gejna<br />

ge-jna<br />

dä<br />

dä<br />

who-com.sg then<br />

‘Who did you go with?’<br />

tjuovvo<br />

tjuovvo<br />

accompany\2sg.pst<br />

[pit080924.615]<br />

[pit080924.071]<br />

(46) man<br />

man<br />

how<br />

mällgadav<br />

mällgada-v<br />

long-acc.sg<br />

ana<br />

ana<br />

have\2sg.prs<br />

dajd<br />

d-a-jd<br />

dem-dist-acc.pl<br />

‘How long do you have those in the smoke hole for?’<br />

riehpenen<br />

riehpene-n<br />

smoke.hole-iness.sg<br />

[pit090702.168]<br />

14 Interrogative pronouns referring to non-human NPs all feature a ma- root, while those referring<br />

to human NPs have a ge- root. Interrogative adverbs also begin with g-. Cf. §6.4.<br />

242

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