Nyelvtudományi Közlemények 103. kötet (2006)
Tanulmányok - Tamás Ildikó: The Lule Saami vocalism 7
The alternations of the marginal vowel of a foot can be described as follows: a —> á / VxSg3 (mctnnat [Inf] —+ manna) e —> á / VxSgl-3 (boahtet [Inf] —> boahtá); CxSglll (goahte [Nom]—> goahtáj) e -> i / VxDul, VxP13; VxSgl-2 (imperf.); CxPlGen, CxPlAcc, CxPlIll, CxPlIness, CxPlElat о -> u / VxSg3, VxDul, VxP13; VxSgl-2 (imperf.); CxSglll, CxSgKom 4.2. Vowel alternations related to gradation15 In words with two or three syllables gradation always takes place at the boundary of the first two syllables; in words with four syllables, it takes place between the third and fourth. The appearance of the allophone á of a in the second half of the foot is bound to gradation and to the quality of the vowel of the first syllable. Thinking within the domain of the short foot, if the central vowel is short and the central consonants undergo gradation of the type II > I, then the marginal a lengthens (Nyst0 - Johnsen 2001: 167):16 ladnja, lanjá 'room' (CxSgNom, CxSgGen) mannát, manáv 'goes' (Inf., VxSgl) láwodahka, lávvodagá 'Saturday' (CxSgNom, CxSgGen) Unfortunately, spelling only indicates the quantitative opposition in the case of a vs. á (because, in addition to the length difference, the place of articulation also differs in this case), thus the long-short vowel alternation is not always traceable in the spelling.17 In the case of merra, mera 'sea', the expected á allophone fails to appear, despite the fact that we have a grade I consonant and a 15 Gradation is a morphophonological phenomenon. It involves an alternation of weak and strong grades of the consonants at the boundaries of 1st and 2nd or the 3rd and 4th syllables. The alternation can be 'radical' (in the stem), 'suffixal' (in the suffix) and 'subradical' (in a relative stem.) According to grade, we distinguish consonants of grades III (too strong or super-long), II (strong) and I (weak). The alternation of the grades brings about quantity and/or quality changes. Discussing this phenomenon in detail is beyond the scope of this paper, but gradation as a vowel modifying factor cannot be disregarded. Some vowel alternations may be overriden or blocked by gradation (both in the first and second syllables of the foot) but others may only be triggered by the appearance of the weaker or stronger grade of consonants. 10 This alternation has to be differentiated from the a - á alternation in VxSg3, mentioned earlier, because the latter had been morphologized in Proto-Saami (even though it only appears in word final position, in a seemingly phonologically conditioned form). See: PS *mene-m > *menem > *mana-m (VxSgl), *mene-k > *mene-k > *mana-k (VxSg2), *menä-ä > *men-ä > *mann-ä (VxSg3) (Sammallahti 1998: 214-219). 17 The rather complicated quantity relations, possible oppositions, and allophonic relations of Saami vowels are areas that contain many unsolved problems even for Lappish linguistics, and are untraceable from the viewpoint of standard spelling.
