A grammar of Pite Saami, 2014

3 Segmental phonology
vowel in V2 position can trigger vowel harmony that slightly closes the end position
of the oral closure so that it is realized as [ʊ͡ɛ], 23 but the triggering vowels
vary between Pite Saami dialects. For southern dialects, only a close /i/ or closemid
vowel /e/ in V2 position can trigger this harmony. In northern dialects, an
open front /a/ in V2 position 24 also triggers this vowel harmony. A few cognate
pairs are provided in Table 3.17.
Table 3.17: Examples of allophony for the diphthong /u͡a/
allophone phonemic phonetic orthography gloss
[ʊ͡a] ku͡alːto kʊ͡alːto gualldo ‘snow.flurry\nom.sg’
ʧu͡arːvo-t ʧʊ͡arːvotʰ tjuarrvot ‘call.out-inf’
[ʊ͡ɛ] ju͡atke-t jʊ͡ɛtʰketʰ juätkit ‘extend-inf’
pu͡ajːte pʊ͡ɛjːte buäjjde ‘fat\nom.sg’
northern southern
[ʊ͡ɛ]∼[ʊ͡a] lu͡akːta lʊ͡ɛktːa lʊ͡aktːa luakkta ‘bay\nom.sg’
vu͡asta vʊ͡ɛsta vʊ͡asta vuasta ‘cheese\nom.sg’
Note that this vowel harmony is triggered by a purely phonological context, as
opposed to the vowel harmony described in §4.1.2.3 in the chapter on morphology,
which is triggered morphologically.
3.2.2 Epenthetic schwa
In a small number of Pite Saami words, a vowel is inserted between two nonhomorganic
consonants in the consonant center position. This centralized vowel
is exceptionally short in duration, and is transcribed here with a superscript
schwa [ᵊ]. Waveforms for the two examples provided in (174) and (175) are found
in Figure 3.3 on the facing page.
(174) /ripːre/ ribbre
[ripᵊre]
‘liver\nom.sg’
(175) /ɲaːlka/ njálga
[ɲaːlᵊkah] ‘candy\nom.pl’
[1403]
[1277]
23 Despite the orthography being quite phonemic rather than phonetic, these two allophones of
/u͡a/ are reflected in spelling: [u͡a] is spelled and [u͡ɛ] is spelled .
24 There are not enough data at this time to know whether a long /aː/ also triggers this in northern
dialects.
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