Northern Sámi and Norwegian

Problems

Generating definiteness

Features we might be able to use: subject/object, theme/focus, prepositions?

• Du dálkasis sáhtii leamaš ávki => Din(det.poss) medisin(ind) kan ha vært til nytte
• Mánná oađđá => Barnet(def) sover (but is this ambiguous?)
• Son lea čeahpes bárdni => Han er en(art) flink(ind) gutt(ind)
• Dá livččii skeaŋka din čeahpes bárdnai => Her er en gave jeg kunne ønske å gi den(art) flinke(def) sønnen(def) deres(det.poss)

Deverbals

Sámi verbs can turn into nouns. We want to be able to put this explicitly into the bidix (eg. sometimes the nob noun is not even based on the nob verb), but if it's not in bidix we want to be able to fall back on a construction using the verb, so

• from geavaheaddjiid/geavahit<V><TV><Der2><Actor><N>
• with fallback => de som bruker<vblex> (or something)
• bidix specified => bruker<n><m>

With the following bidix entries we specify that we want bruker<n><m> in the above example:

    <e><p><l>geavahit<s n="V"/><s n="TV"/></l><r>bruke<s n="vblex"/><s n="pers"/></r></p><par n="__verb"/></e>
    <e><p><l>geavahit<s n="V"/><s n="TV"/><s n="Der2"/><s n="Actor"/><s n="N"/></l><r>bruker<s n="n"/><s n="m"/></r></p><par n="__n"/></e>

while if the second bidix line isn't there, we get the fallback. Transfer rules can now check

 <equal><clip side="tl" part="pos" ...><lit-tag v="N"/></equal>
 <equal><clip side="sl" part="pos" ...><lit-tag v="V"/></equal>

See also

• Pending tests