A grammar of Pite Saami, 2014

4.1 Overview of morphology
consonant gradation alternations illustrated here are /tn‐n/ and /jpm‐jm/, respectively,
and correspond to the patterns xy‐y and xyz‐xz.
(5) /atna/ /ana/
adna ana
have\3sg.prs have\2sg.prs
(6) /vaːjpmo/ /vaːjmo/
vájbmo vájmo
heart\nom.sg heart\nom.pl
[pit101208]
[pit110413a]
As may be inferred from the examples above, paradigmatic alternations between
nom.sg and nom.pl forms for nouns, or between 2sg.prs and 3sg.prs forms
for verbs are often a good source of minimal pairs concerning consonant gradation
alternations, and are a useful way to determine consonant gradation patterns.
Note that the geminate plosives and affricates /pː tː kː ʦː ʧː/ are lacking in Table
4.2 on the facing page for the pattern xː‐x, although alternations such as pː‐p
could be expected. However, due to a lack of sufficient data and some conflicting
data in the corpus, it is not entirely clear what the current status is for consonant
gradation in words with a consonant center consisting solely of a geminate plosive
or affricate. The fact that Pite Saami lacks consonant gradation in a limited
number of contexts is one of the main differences to Lule Saami to the north,
which does not lack consonant gradation, and Ume Saami to the south, which
features consonant gradation even less frequently (cf. Sammallahti 1998: 21–23).
The example in (7) illustrates a word clearly lacking consonant gradation in the
corpus data, here with the geminate velar plosive /kː/.
(7) /vaːkːe/ /vaːkːe/ (*/vaːke/)
vágge vágge
valley\nom.sg valley\nom.pl
[pit110522]
Corpus data also indicate that variation within the Pite Saami area complicates
things. For instance, the adjective tjábbe ‘beautiful’ undergoes consonant gradation
in the speech of speakers from the northern parts of Arjeplog, but does not
for southern speakers, as illustrated in (8). For northern speakers, the gradation
is realized as an alternation in voicing, and not length.
(8) /ʧaːpːa/ /ʧaːpːe/ /ʧaːbːe/
southern northern
tjábba tjábbe
beautiful\attr beautiful\pred
[pit110522, sje20131017]
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