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Part of
Free Variation in Grammar: Empirical and theoretical approaches
Edited by Kristin Kopf and Thilo Weber
[Studies in Language Companion Series 234] 2023
► pp. 168–201

Chapter 6
Variation and change in the Aanaar Saami conditional perfect

ORCID logo | University of Tartu
The present study captures a case of language variation in the verbal system of Aanaar (Inari) Saami, namely that of the conditional perfect, which can be expressed by two periphrastic constructions. The aim of this paper is twofold: (1) to give a diachronic description of the Aanaar Saami conditional perfect and (2) to investigate whether its variation can be considered to be ‘free’ or whether it is explainable by intra- and extralinguistic determinants. The data consists of language samples gathered in 1887 and 1952, the Aanaar Saami text corpus and a survey carried out in 2020. The diachronic comparison indicates changes in the variation which are, among others, discussed in the light of linguistic interference and Aanaar Saami’s recent revitalisation.
Keywords: Aanaar Saami, conditional perfect, conditional mood, morphosyntactic variation, free variation, language change, Saami
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1The Saami conditional and its perfect: An overview
    • 1.2Data and methods of the present study
  • 2.The Aanaar Saami conditional perfect and its variation across the data
  • 3.Possible determinants of the variation
    • 3.1Person and number
    • 3.2Main verb
    • 3.3Type of clause
    • 3.4Polarity
    • 3.5Dialect
    • 3.6Speaker generation
    • 3.7Significance and interplay of the variables
  • 4.Discussion: (Free) variation and change
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
  • Sources of data and examples
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 31 October 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.234.06nii
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