A grammar of Pite Saami, 2014

4.1 Overview of morphology
4.1.2.1 Consonant gradation
The term consonant gradation 2 refers to regular alternations of the consonant
phonemes in the consonant center of the final foot of a word. 3
All consonant phonemes in the consonant center are included in the present
classification of such alternations. These alternations come in pairs of stem allomorphs
that differ quantitatively and/or qualitatively. Alternations can be between
a preaspirated and the corresponding non-aspirated consonant (ʰx‐x), a
geminate consonant and the corresponding singleton consonant (xː‐x), a geminate+singleton
and the corresponding singleton+singleton (xːy‐xy), two singletons
and only the latter singleton (xy‐y), and three singletons and only the initial
and final singleton (xyz‐xz). 4
These patterns and the attested alternations are provided in Table 4.2 on the
following page. The term strong grade (abbreviated ‘str’) is used to refer to the
form with preaspiration, a geminate or more consonant segments than the corresponding
form. Likewise, the term weak grade (abbreviated ‘wk’) refers to the
form lacking a preaspirated or geminate consonant, or having fewer consonant
segments, respectively. To facilitate reading Table 4.2, the attested alternations
for each pattern are organized by alternations with a non-aspirated element first,
followed by patterns with at least one preaspirated element. Furthermore, the
individual lists of alternations are organized by mode of articulation and by the
order set forth in the consonant phoneme inventory in Table 3.1 on page 37. Some
examples illustrating this can be found below.
The minimal pair in (2) shows a consonant gradation alternation /ʰp‐p/, which
corresponds to the pattern ʰx‐x.
(2) /dɔʰpe/ /dɔpe/
dåhpe dåbe
house\nom.sg house\gen.sg
[pit100324]
2 This term is quite common in Saami linguistics, e.g., in Feist (2010), although it is also known as
‘grade alternation’, e.g., in Sammallahti (1998). As much of the literature on Saami linguistics
is in languages other than English, it may be useful to provide some translations of the term
‘consonant gradation’: German: Stufenwechsel, Swedish: stadieväxling, Finnish: astevaihtelu,
Hungarian: fokváltakozás and Russian: чередование ступеней.
3 Cf. §2.2.2 on prosodic positions, including the foot and the consonant center.
4 There are certainly other ways to classify these alternations in the consonant center as well. For
instance, one could disregard any consonant phonemes that are present in both alternations
(then xː‐x and xːy‐xy would be the same type), or consider the xː‐x and ʰxː‐x patterns in Table 4.2
to be the same type as simply a case of alternating consonant phonemes. However, the patterns
in the present classification demonstrate the regularity of patterning between phonological
features (such as geminate vs. singleton).
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