Difference between revisions of "Documenting Lule Sami"

Revision as of 12:55, 6 November 2008

Hi fellow TypeCrafters,

   This page is under heavy reconstruction, so do not yet look too closely at it :=) 

Documenting Lule Sami is a pilot study for an in-depth manual annotation of Lule Sami text which is conducted at the Department for Language and Communication Studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. The project started in Mai 2008 and will end in November 2008. The page A Pilot Study in Documenting Lule Sami tells you more about the project itself. About Lule Sami gives a short introduction to the Lule Sami people and their language. Following the latter link you also will find other relevant links about the Sami and their language.

Lule Sami is a morphologically rich, highly inflected and very often fusional language which makes its in-depth morpho-syntactic annotation an interesting, yet at the same time a difficult and very time-consuming task.

Below we discuss some of the issues that were raised during annotation.

Annotating Lule Sami - Questions and some answers

Categories and Functions

ADJ and N

Anders Kintel writes in his "Veiledning i bruk av ordboka (foreløpig versjon):

"Vi gjør oppmerksom på at de fleste adjektiv i samisk kan også fungere som substantiv og også motsatt, derfor står det ikke alltid en markering bak ordet som tilsier at dette er et adjektiv eller et substantiv".

We would like to draw attention to the fact that most adjectives in Sami can function as nouns, as well as nouns can function as adjectives; therefore there is not always marker suffixed to the word that expresses that this is an adjective or a noun.

Reference: Kintel A. Lulesamisk-norsk del?. Ajluokta /Drag, Biehtsemanon 2005. Unpublished manuscript.

Here an example from a next that we have annotated.

In the example below we annotate vuorra meaning old on the POS tier as N:

In the case of vurro we in fact do find derivational morphology. The -s in vuorra-s [vuorrasa] marks the noun as derived. The -s is followed by some case inflection. Clearly, the function of vuorra is that of a noun, and accordingly it has been inflected for case. (Kristin)

In general we will annotate the word's POS category according to its function in the given context. However on the glossing tier we should in addition indicate the word's derivation. The -s reflects nominalization, so we should use the ADJ-> N tag in the gloss line to reflect this better (Dorothee).

We need gloss tags ATT for attributive form and PRED for predicative form of the adjectives. Some forms are equal in both forms - then perhaps, it is sufficient to mark it only with ADJ pos. (Kristin)

V > N (Again the issue is how to annotate for derivation)

(Kristin): I think it is NOT enough to annotate V > N, V > V, etc. We should mark every derivation with what kind of N derivation it is. I have written something about it below:

In the phrase below the word for temptation is derived from the verb 'watch/look, which in LS is gähttjalibmáj. When we decompose this word we get: gæhttjat+V+TV+Der1+Der/l+V+Actio+Der2+Der/ibme+N+Sg+Ill

Consider the following phrase:

In descriptive Sami grammars the nominalizer li is called Actio. The nominalizer seems to be internally complex: -li- i gæhttja-li-t = subjunctive-FREQ

(Dorothee) At this point it is not clear which subtypes of nominalizing suffixes we should distinguish. We could for example introduce NMLZ.actio and other subtypes of nominalizer. How useful would that be? Perhaps we should wait until we have a clearer overview over which categories are needed.

V > Adj but how about ADJ->V

In the phrase below we need the tag ADJ->V

oahpásmuvvat: oahpás- is an ADJ ('oahpás-' in compounds, 'oahpes' (ATT) otherwise)

(Kristin): It should be possible to note somewhere that verb(s) can be derived from adjectives. Maybe there should be one more level for derivations only? Also, the translation is of no help: while oahpás- is an ADJ in ATT form, known is a V in PERF.PART form. Translation gives us only sketchy semantics.

(Dorothee): UPS yes, we need the tag ADJ->V

PRON.POSS vs. PRON

Above is a nominal construction where the possessive pronoun follows the noun. Possessive pronouns may also precede the noun. (Dorothee): Question: Are both syntactic pattern in free distribution? Is one of the two constructions preferred? So do we find one of the constructions more often in our texts?

Why really should we use only PRON when the possessive is used attributive, but PRON.POSS when it is used as modifier?.

VERBAL FORMS

more verbal tags...

While annotation verb forms in Lule Sami we noticed that TypeCraft did not provide all the tags we needed. In the following we exemplify some of the verb forms, and discuss the right use of tags.

GERUND we need to tag two distinct gerunds:

Gerund I

Is expressing: while..., at the same time as... something happens at the same time as the doing the main verb is expressing.

sån oaddá-j bårå-dijn = he fell asleep while eating

jåhte-t -> jåde-dijn = while moving

tjieggi-t -> tjieggi-dijn = while traveling

tjåhkani-t -> tjåhkana-ttjin= while assembling

Note: -dijn - used after the last vowel of the week stem of a pair-syllabic verb or after the last vowel of the stem of a contracted verb ...(a)-ttjin - used after the last vowel of an unpair-syllabic verb (the last stem vowel changes to '-a'

Gerund II

Is expressing: someone is doing something, or something is going on, or something has started but is not finished. The Gerund II is build through the use of the auxiliary liehke-t (to be).

sån la låhkå-min = he is reading

-min - used after the last vowel of the strong stem of a pair-syllabic verb

Ex: sån la goarro-min (= she is sewing)

- used after the last vowel of a contract verb:

Ex: sån la guolli-min (= she is fishing)

-me - used after the last vowel of an unpair-syllabic verb

Ex: sån la malesti-me (= he is cooking) (all examples from Spiik) (Kristin)

Imperative

Also here we need two distinct tags to distinguish between

IMP.1 which expresses a direct order.

IMP.2 which expresses a strong wish or suggestion

INCHOATIVE

In the gloss tier we need a tag for inchoative verbs. Here an example:

oaddá-t er inchoative of oade-t.

Phonologically inchoatives are marked by a fortification of the consonant cluster and lengthening of the last vowel in the stem.

NEGATIVE VERBS

The tag Vneg in the POS tier is needed.

Supinum

How should one annotate the suffix -tji in the above sentence. Kristin suggests to use 'supinum'. I am not so sure that this is right. As far as I know the supinum is one of the infinite forms of LS next to the infinitive, the gerund, the participle and others. But is -tji in the example above really an infinite marker, and then what is the -t? (Dorothee)

May be it is better to say that 'supinum' is tjit and as such an infinite marker. (Kristin)

Ex: "Dån la má smidá váttsá-tjit!" - "You are clever at walking!" (Arnhild/Kristin)

Derivational or inflectional ??

Is it possible to say that the supinum marker is a derivational suffix ? It is mentioned among the ordavledninger in descriptive grammars? (Kristin)

Strong and weak verb stems

Verbs in LS can either have a weak or a strong stem, so for example the verb wash has two stem forms

basá and bassi

the 1P, present tense is expressed as basá-v while the 1P past tense is bassi-v.

We will use the tag WEAK and STRONG to distinguish these two forms.

Grammatical Changes

LS is changing...

oahpásmuvvat doarromuseajn

According to grammars of LS - oahpásmuvvat takes ILL, but in the example sentence above it is used with a COMIT case. This leads to a change in meaning:

- muvva-t: used with ILL: the meaning is: get to know (people and concrete things), get accustomed to, get experience with, get familiar with.

(- tuvva-t used with COMIT the meaning is: learn to know). (Kristin)

Translation of place names

In English (as in other languages too - but not so much in Norwegian..) it is quite normal to translate proper names, e.g. München > Munich, Firenze > Florence, København > Copenhagen, etc.

Lule Sami place names have been translated into Norwegian, such as:

Ájluokta-Drag; Gásluokta-Kjøpsvik; Guovdageaidnu-Kautokeino; Divttasvuodna-Tysfjord, etc.

In Norway place names have officially a Sami and a Norwegian name, and the Sami name is used when writing in Sami, while the Norwegian one is used when writing in Norwegian.

As for free translation into English this could been that we either use the Sami name, since we translate from Sami, or that we use the Norwegian name, since the Norwegian name is better known.

Which one should it be?

SÁMI - SAMI - SAAMI

I just talked with the employee at the museum at Arran who has the responsibility for the exibitions, Anne Kalstad Mikkelsen. She has checked the spelling of sáme with the Norvegian Sami Parliament. The Sami Parliament has decided that sáme is to be written Sami in English. So the museum has to follow this norm.

So - we should then follow the same norm! (Shouldn't we?) (Kristin)

Presentational page

bajedihtte

åjvijdihtte

ja bigodihtte

slehpájdihtte

This poem is nice! And the grammar too! Now I leave Trondheim... See you on TypeCraft!... (Kristin - Oct. 20 18:00]

ÁJLUOVTA SKÅVLÅ...

Here is the printing-friendly page in the Lokalavisa NordSalten:

http://www.nord-salten.no/nyheter/samisk/ajluovta_skavla_buosjes_oahppe_vas_svierigis_vadtsin#tips

It is possible to put it somewhere. (Kristin)

Here is a picture from the museum at Árran, from the exibition Viessom: A couple in bout, fishing: [[1]] (Kristin)

Concerning the following sentence and the paragraph that contains it in the main text:

"This long history and the fact that they are usually not mutually intelligible makes them different languages, not different dialects as they are often mistakenly described."

It seems that the referent of the demonstrative in the sentence above should be 'Saami languages', but that did not come out well I think. Yet. it would be nice to get an answer to the question, why LS is called a language rather than a dialect of Saami!

Another thing is that I guess nobody would really claim that Estonian, Finish and Saami are the same language. So one probably does not have to assert that! (Dorothe There are dialects that are more different from each other than the Saami languages. There are languages that are 'identical' - just with minor differences.

I (when I talk about it!) explain Saami to have three main language groups: Eastern Saami Languages group, Central Saami Languages group, and Southern Saami Languages group. Sea Saami, Inari Saami, North Saami, Lule Saami and Pite Saami belongs to the Central Saami Languages group. The Central Saami Languages group have quantity change in common. There are 10 different tounges of Saami - and each of them can be divided in dialectal groups (see Sammallahti). Differrent language groups is one factor that counts for conidering South Saami and East (Skolt) Saami as different 'languages' than the languages belonging in the Central Saami Languages group.

These Saami languages are written with different orthography: Latin and cyrillic - and several different solutions at least for the latin alphabets. So in Norway East Saami, North Saami, Lule Saami and South Saami are all written with different alphabet (Pite Saami and Ume Saami I do not know about in modern written form). This situation makes communication between the different Saami groups difficult. This is a second factor that makes these languages considered 'languages' and not dialects.

Neighbouring Saami dialects are not so different that it is a hindrance for mutual understanding, but the dialects are gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility. Samis have 80% of their vocabulary in common, but the semantics of the words can differ substantially; then comes differences in syntax, morphology and phonology. Samis talk their own language inside their own group, outside the group the majority language is usually used. Lack of mutual intelligibility is a third factor. (Kristin)

It also seems to me that the next statement does not really follow. But if in fact it is true that Saami is an older language than the Germanic and the Romance language then there should be a reference to a known scholar claiming that!!

BTW, is it true that the Romance language family is half as old as the Germanic, does not quite sound right? We definitely need references if we want to leave this sentence in the text. I would simply opt for omitting it. It is not central to our concern. (Dorothee)

I do not know of any knowledge that says Saami is 'older' than other languages. This way of thinking about languages is absurd! - Languages change all the time, and at one point they have been through so many quantitative changes (many small changes) that it experiences a change in quality. In Norwegian there were quantitative changes after the Great Plauge which resulted in a quantitative change around 1550: New Norwegian was a fact (the name in opposition to Old Norwegian - or Norse).

If we go thousand years back, the Saami languages (or dialect groups) were more near (similiar) than today. I suppose Pekka Sammallahti is one that knows a lot about this. In his book "The Saami Languages" he writes also about diacrony.

If we compare today's Saami languages with Norwegian and the languages N. is related too, the older all-Sami language (do not remember what it is called just now) may be compared with Germanic. I can look up when mayor changes have taken place in the history of the Saami languages, - but this will still not 'prove' anything in a discussion of 'how old' Saami languages are. It tells only of when linguists will consider a change to be a change of quality.

So may be we quit talking about 'old' languages... (Kristin)

"Saami has been spoken on the Scandinavian and Kola Peninsulas in Northwest Europe since prehistoric times." This is not a correct statement. So it has to go. (Krsitin)

"Note that the Sea Saami no longer have an independent language, but have adopted North Saami, Lule Saami or Norwegian."

"no longer have an independent language"? Well, Sea Saami have never "had" an independent language. What does this mean?

Sea Saami is an independent language which today is talked by old people in Kvænangen and Varanger.

Sea Saami has not a own written language, but this lacs also Pite Saami and Ume Saami. (Kristin) There should be an SAVE icon to push also at the top of the editing window :) [I do not like to have to scroll down to the bottom every time I want to save :( ]. (Kristin)

It should be possible to search for glosses and poses too.

Fx it be possible to search for, PRES, PAST, IMP, etc. and get to see the different paradigms and the words (from the text) in citation form that belonged into the particular paradigms. (Then there should be possible to put one of the words into the paradigm (show this paradigm for ...(word) - and the paradigm would show the word for all the paradigm instances that is used in the text- without muliplying when it is used more than once.)

It should also be possible to search for spatial words or temporal words and then get all Nspt and ADVspt - or all Ntmp and ADVtmp - in separated lists - the Ns together with the word they are tied to. All alphabetically with the citation form

Then it should be possible to search for VI and VT and the citation forms should pop up alphabetically.(Kristin)

Here the <:CASE> coming before the ILL-SG of which it is an explanation.

Better is: ILL.SG <:CASE> (Kristin)

Lule Sami Árranis: Viessom: Sáme vanntsabiggárin [museum exibition]>10 Lule Sami Árran - julevsáme guovdásj [homepage] (19 sentences; 0 annotated)

This is not the right way to do it! It has to be like this: a ab ac aba abb abc ac aca etc etc

It has to be the opposite way:

Lule Sami Árran - julevsáme guovdásj [homepage] (19 sentences; 0 annotated) ... ... Lule Sami Árranis: Viessom: Sáme vanntsabiggárin [museum exibition]>10

This has to be corrected. (Kristin)

Hi Kristin and Svenn Egil,

This will be our project page!!! (click back to article)

It's purpose is ofc to report on the annotation of Lule Saami texts that we do, but written up in a way that it is interesting to all ppl interested in languages or Lule Saami or both.

NOT JUST LINGUISTS

We should make sure that this becomes a page that has information that cannot be found on the Wikipedia or any other well known web information source.

Moreover, it should be interesting and beautiful information - so not too much text; instead some text made attractive by pictures, music files, cool links, and also with a internal link to your personal page in this TC wiki so that ppl can see who the ppl are that annotate Lule Saami... and so forth.

Here now some links and text snippets that I found interesting in this connection:

http://boreale.konto.itv.se/laante.htm http://boreale.konto.itv.se/samieng1.htm

Bluegreen: LuleSami. Mountain and ForestSami culture in Norway and Sweden, many famous handicrafters and chanters from this group, language is locally quite strong. Separate educational institutions with several textbooks in the language, but not for all subjects teached. A small number of books are published each year in this language. Traditional and present day cultural center: Jokkmokk, Sweden.

Webmasters note:

As a curiosity I'd like to mention that there's one Sami word that has made it into several of the major languages of this world, that word is Tundra -doesn't it speak volumes about which part of the world this is. :)

When Nils-Aslak Valkeapää in his book The Sun—my Father (1991), chooses to create a metaphorical poem of a migrating herd of reindeer and uses [in his poem] some of the wealth of names that exist in Sami to describe the reindeer’s appearance, age and sex, he does so not only to demonstrate the wealth of terminology within the Sami language—he does something beyond that: He plays with the language, conjuring up concepts that have never been used before in that fashion. He conceives, in a sense, new fictional animals by combining familiar words in new ways. And he creates different reindeer which, in terms of their being a part of the herd or outside of it, can easily be viewed as parallels to the artist and his or her position in society, as well as to all human beings in their common experiences of being part of a "flock" or alone.

To this wealth of words can be added a great number of Sami onomatopoetical expressions for sounds pertaining to migration, words for working the herd, for the baying of dogs,and the sounds of a thousand hoofs on frozen ground, for undulating moors over which reindeer horns move, for the sound of bells that, like a blanket of clouds, lift the sky up and give the basis for life in these northern regions. And, as if that isn’t enough, there are allusions to the Sami national anthem, and tracks left behind by the herd, both concrete tracks where it has walked and abstract tracks for us, the readers, to follow back into history. Whether we journey with the herd or only pass by it as we wander, it is impossible for us to survive into the future without the tracks, without nature: The River of Life, the daughter of spring, sap, the mosquito maidens and "the sun/red and warm/moved happiness/ into the morning." Because "nothing remains of us/but a yoik in the singing wind/a dream about being." But even so: "and time does not exist, no end, none/and time is, eternal, always, is," and we are all part of "the life’s circle/infinite/without/beginning/or end/fulfills/changes/colors"…"the horizon’s red dawn/ the starry peaks."

taken from: http://weberstudies.weber.edu/archive/archive%20C%20Vol.%2016.2-18.1/Vol.%2016.2/haraldgaski.html

At the beginning it might be confusing to edit this wiki, but I can tell you that one learns it rather fast :=) I used the following link to get the information I needed:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Editing

We cannot use information that tells us that Lule Sami culture is a mountain and Forest Sami Culture in Norway! This concerns only Samis on the Swedish side of the border.

On the Norwegian side of the border we find a Costal Sami culture - that differs from Costal Sami Culture further north!

I can write shortly about this.