Southern Sámi morphophonological processes

Overview

Below is a list of the phenomena that need to be accounted for:

• Umlaut
  • Umlaut table
• Vowel reduction
• Consonant simplification
• Resyllabification
• Stem type shift due to derivation

• Regular nominal inflection
• Possessive suffixes
• Verbal inflection
• Derivational suffixes

Umlaut

Location:

First syllable in word, possibly in foot (needs to be further investigated)

Context:

When the following syllable is reduced (as the second vowel in a three-syllable foot), it causes Umlaut of the first syllable

Restrictions:

- Only nouns ending in -ie (obligatory) and -oe (optional, not all such words);
- Possessive inflection (needs further investigation);
- Only verbs of class I, II and IV (double check this, Bergsland could be incomplete);
- Many derivational endings (needs further investigation)
- Attribute forms of nominals

In the following table, all Umlaut rows are listed. The first syllable vowel (the "Umlauted" one) can belong to one of seven sets, the vowel of the following syllable (the "Umlauting" one) can be one of six. The core Umlaut table is as found in Bergsland 1994: Sydsamisk grammatikk (page 32), the additional info about use is mine.

Note that the table is simplifying the facts. The different e's in the context for R4-R6 is not further specified, nor is the fact that the other Umlauting vowels might be full (as listed) or reduced due to the addition of another syllable.

Examples

Below is listed all the rows R1 to R6, together with where we find the Umlauting ending in question, either reduced or fully, and examples of the Umlaut process

R1 (-ie)

Full form:

-ie

Reduced form:

-e-

Found/used in:

Nouns ending in -ie
some of the cases, including nom. sg. & pl.

klihtie (C1), mehkie (C2), kruhpie (C3), mielhkie (C4), jaevrie (C5), gåetie (C6), njuenie (C7)

Attributive form in -ies
this category seems to cut across other categories

servies (>sarva) (C2), gunkies (>gånka) (C3), faelies (>faala) (C5),

Short forms of nouns (nominals?)
not all such short forms cause umlaut, probably depends on the underlying vowel(?)

dektier (>daktere) (C2) - this is the only documented short form with Umlaut, and as the paradigm of 'daktere' clearly shows, the underlying vowel of the second syllable has to be 'a' (daktere > daktarasse (ILL)); thus, it looks more like a case of lexical variants than real Umlaut

R2 (-a)

Full form:

-a (long)

Reduced form:

-e-

Found/used in:

Nouns ending in -a

mæssa (C1), *lantja, sarva (C2), kråvna, gånka (C3), bearka (C4), maana, faala (C5), båara, båala (C6), buala (C7)
nouns belonging to this group do not undergo Umlaut during the course of inlfection, but the root vowel adheres to the Umlaut table, such that there will not be any nouns with a root vowel other than those allowed in the Umlaut table (this is for the moment only a (likely) hypothesis, needs to be verified); but some of these words do have an attributive form ending in -ies, which causes Umlaut according to R1.

Ill. Sg. for nouns ending in -ie

(examples)

3. Sg. Pres. for verbs on -ie-

(examples)

Notes: R2 and R3 are almost completely identical (the only difference can't really be verified, according to Bergsland 1994), the only difference being the ending. But with a tendency for a geografical distribution: the -a forms (R2) is more used in the south (marked with a star '*' in the dictionary Bergsland & Mattsson Magga 1993), the -oe forms are unmarked. Additionaly, there seems to be a tendency to blend C2 and C3 for these two rows, such that one often finds several variants of the same word, occupying one of the four places in the matrix C2-C3,R2-R3 (the place R2C3 seems to be least used?).

R3 (-oe)

Full form:

-oe

Reduced form:

-o-, -e-

Found/used in:

Nouns ending in -oe

mæssoe (C1), slampoe (C2), kråvnoe (C3), bearkoe (C4), aaltoe (C5), båaloe (C6), (ingen døme på C7)

full form:

full form:

R4 (-e¹)

Full form:

-oe

Reduced form:

-o-, -e-

Found/used in:

Nouns ending in -oe

mæssoe (C1), slampoe (C2), kråvnoe (C3), bearkoe (C4), aaltoe (C5), båaloe (C6), (ingen døme på C7)

full form:

full form:

R5 (-e²)

Full form:

-oe

Reduced form:

-o-, -e-

Found/used in:

Nouns ending in -oe

mæssoe (C1), slampoe (C2), kråvnoe (C3), bearkoe (C4), aaltoe (C5), båaloe (C6), (ingen døme på C7)

full form:

full form:

R6 (-e³)

Full form:

-oe

Reduced form:

-o-, -e-

Found/used in:

Nouns ending in -oe

mæssoe (C1), slampoe (C2), kråvnoe (C3), bearkoe (C4), aaltoe (C5), båaloe (C6), (ingen døme på C7)

full form:

full form:

Vowel reduction

Test

Consonant simplification

Test

Resyllabification

Test

Stem type shift due to derivation

Test