A grammar of Pite Saami, 2014

4.2 Overview of word classes
(13) /polta/ /pulːte/
buolda bullde
ignite\2sg.prs ignite\2sg.pst
[pit101208]
See §5.3.1.2 for more details on vowel harmony in nouns, and §8.4.2.1 in verbs.
Note that, for nouns, vowel harmony is also referred to as ‘j-suffix vowel harmony’.
4.2 Overview of word classes
By characterizing the morphological and syntactic behavior of words in Pite
Saami, and grouping such words based on that behavior, a total of seven word
classes can be distinguished. These can be divided into two general categories
containing generally open word classes and closed word classes, and are listed in
Table 4.6. The specific syntactic criteria and inflectional categories defining these
are summarized in Table 4.7 on the next page.
Table 4.6: Pite Saami word classes and the corresponding chapter/section
open word classes Ch./Sec. closed word classes Sec.
nominals adpositions §9.2
nouns Ch. 5 conjunctions §9.3
pronouns Ch. 6 interjections §9.4
adjectivals
adjectives Ch. 7
numerals §7.9
verbs Ch. 8
adverbials §9.1
Some word classes consist of two or more subclasses: nominals refer to nouns
and pronouns (personal, demonstrative, reflexive, interrogative and relative), and
adjectivals include both adjectives and numerals. Note that pronouns and numerals
are closed subclasses belonging to open classes.
This categorization is intended to provide a broad starting point for classifying
Pite Saami words; details for each word class can be found in the relevant chapters
below. Chapter 5 concerns the nominal subclass nouns, which provide fairly
straightforward examples of the morphophonological complexities involved in
Pite Saami inflection and derivation, while the nominal subclass pronouns is dealt
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