Characteristics of the Northern Sami language in AX Semantics

Fundamentals

In Northern Sami, you need to know the case and number of a noun to form the accompanying adjective, determiners and pronouns correctly.

Northern Sami has no grammatical gender. It has seven cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, illative, locative, comitative, and essive. Additionally, Northern Sami has three numbers: singular, plural, and dual.

grammatical name	values	examples
number	singular	beatnagan (my dog)
	plural	beatnageamẹt (my dogs)
	dual	beatnageamẹ (my two dogs)
case	nominative	viessu (house)
	accusative	son oaidná viesu (he sees the house)
	genitive	viesu (house's)
	illative	vīssui (to the house)
	locative	viesus (in the house)
	comitative	viesūin (with house)
	essive	viessun (as the house)
adjectives (noun)	before noun	ruoksat viessu (red house)
verb tenses	present	son viehka (he runs)
	past	son viegai (he ran)

The standard order of a noun phrase in Northern Sami is the following: preposition + determiner + numeral + adjective + noun. See for example:

birra   dáid   golbma ođđasiid  girjjiid
about   these  three  new       books
PREP    DET    NUM    ADJ       NOUN
"about these three new  books"

Lexicon

Nouns

Northern Sami nouns inflect for case and number. Nouns should be added to the lexicon if they are not regular.

Lexicon entries for nouns may also be necessary for inflecting determiners, adjectives, numerals and pronouns correctly. They are omitted, if a lexicon entry is required, but missing.

Examples

The basic lexicon entry for beana (dog) contains:

• inflection table for number:

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	beana	beatnagat
Accusative	beatnaga	beatnagiid
Genitive	beatnaga	beatnagiid
Illative	beatnagii	beatnagiidda
Locative	beatnagis	beatnagiin
Comitative	beatnagiin	beatnagiiguin
Essive	beanan	beanan

Note that dual form is mainly used for possessive determiners, personal pronouns, or verbs. On other occasions, dual form might not be required.

Adjectives

In Northern Sami, adjectives inflect for case and number. The default position for an adjective is "before noun".

Verbs

Northern Sami verbs inflect for number, tense, and person. The most common verbs are encoded in our software. If a verb inflects incorrectly, you should add it to the lexicon.

Container settings

Determiner

The AX NLG platform supports the following determiners for Northern Sami: demonstrative (proximal + distal) and possessive. Possessives are attached as suffixes to the noun.

Pronoun

The AX NLG platform supports the following pronouns for Northern Sami: demonstrative (proximal + distal) and personal.

Numerals

Four types of numerals are possible on the AX NLG platform: cardinal, cardinal as digit, ordinal, and ordinal as digit. Take beaivi (day) for example:

	cardinal	ordinal
text	ovcci beaivvit (nine days)	ovccát beaivi (the ninth day)
digit	9 beaivvit (9 days)	9. beaivi (the 9th day)

For Northern Sami, both cardinal and ordinal numerals are written out until 10 on the platform, otherwise (above 10) the output is in digit form. Take cardinal numerals for example:

logi beatnagat
(ten dogs)
vs.
11 beatnagat
(11 dogs)

Consonant gradation

The AX platform applies consonant gradation for Northern Sami automatically. Consonant gradation involves that consonants alternate between a strong grade (e.g. dd/vv/ll…) in some inflection forms of a word and a weak grade (e.g. tt/v/l…) in others. The example below shows the alternation ll → l:

ballu (fear) [nom. sg.]
→ balu [acc. sg.]

Diphthong simplification

Similarly, AX platform also applies diphthong simplification for Northern Sami automatically. Diphthong simplification implies that the second vowel of the diphthong is removed when the next syllable contains /e/, /o/, /ii/, /ij/, /ui/, or /uj/. The example below shows the simplification ea → ē, since the syllable following the diphthong contains ii:

geassi (summer) [nom. sg.]
→ gēsiid (of the summers) [gen. pl.]