Colorative construction in the works of Hans Aslak Guttorm

Abstract

This paper focuses on a North Saami verbal expression known as colorative construction. This construction consists of two finite verbs: a neutral verb plus a finite verb that dramatizes or specifies the denotative meaning of the construction. The material for the study comes from North Saami fiction, written by Hans Aslak Guttorm and published in 1940–1986. The study is qualitative, with emphasis on the comparison between the North Saami and Finnish languages. There are many studies of colorative constructions in Finnish, but only a few on North Saami.

There are numerous differences between the colorative constructions in North Saami and those in Finnish. Firstly, in North Saami, the construction consists of two finite verbs, whereas in Finnish it consists of one infinitive and one finite verb. Secondly, in North Saami, stems of the initial neutral verbs may contain two or more syllables, whereas in Finnish, the neutral verbs do not usually contain more than two syllables. Furthermore, the latter component of the colorative construction in North Saami is typically a common verb whose meaning can be understood independent of context. In contrast, the corresponding verb in Finnish is usually only found in certain Finnish dialects and thus its meaning is very difficult to understand without the first, neutral verb of the colorative construction.

It is worth noting that in North Saami, both verbs in the colorative construction conjugate in a similar manner (hoigat šávvat ‘to punt, making a fuss’), or have similar meanings, e.g., to begin something (suhkalii jullagođii ‘began to row with a crash/rumble’). In North Saami, colorative verbs describe natural sounds, although they are caused by humans.