Chapter published in:
Uralic Essive and the Expression of Impermanent State
Edited by Casper de Groot
[Typological Studies in Language 119] 2017
► pp. 217–241

Chapter 9
The essive in North Saami

This chapter presents an empirical study of the distribution of a morphological case labelled as the ‘essive’ in North Saami. The description of the properties of this case follows the linguistic questionnaire that captures the contexts in which essive and/or translative markers may occur in the Uralic languages. The study specifically investigates the opposition between permanent and impermanent state in non-verbal predications. The linguistic domains involved are non-verbal main predication, secondary predication, complementation, and manner, temporal, and circumstantial adverbial phrases. The use of the marker in the essive sense (associated with state) is contrasted with its use in expressing the translative sense (associated with change). Finally, the syntactic position of elements marked by this form is discussed in relation to the position of focus constituents.
Keywords: North Saami, depictive, essive case, secondary predication
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Non-verbal predication
  • 3.Secondary predication
    • 3.1Depictive essive
    • 3.2 Essive-like depictive in -naga
    • 3.3Circumstantial essive
  • 4.Predicative complements
  • 5.Adverbials
  • 6.Temporality and location
  • 7.Comparative and simile expressions (and related functions of the essive)
  • 8.Essive versus translative
  • 9.Word order
  • 10.Conclusions and final remarks
  • Notes
  • Corpus
  • References
Published online: 30 November 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.119.09yli
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