A grammar of Pite Saami, 2014

4 Morphological patterns and word
classes
Morphology plays an essential role in Pite Saami, a highly synthetic language.
Based on morphological patterning and in addition to syntactic criteria, seven
word classes can be posited. §4.1 first provides an introduction to morphological
phenomena in Pite Saami, before §4.2 summarizes the word classes.
4.1 Overview of morphology
A number of inflectional categories exist in Pite Saami; Table 4.1 provides a summary
of inflectional categories relevant for each sub-category of the relevant
word classes.
Table 4.1: Inflectional categories for pertinent word classes and sub-categories of
word classes
word class/sub-category
verbs
• finite forms
• non-finite forms
nominals
• nouns
• interrogative, relative pronouns
• personal, reflexive pronouns
• demonstrative pronouns
adjectivals
• attributive adjectives
• predicative adjectives
inflectional categories
person, tense, mood
aspect, connegation, etc.
case, number
case, number
case, number, person
case, number, distance
comparative, superlative
comparative, superlative, number
Derivational morphology is commonly used to create nouns, verbs, and, to
a lesser extent, adjectives and adverbs. Both derivational and inflectional mor-