Saamelaiskielten indefiniittipronominien jäljillä

We provide an overview of indefinite pronouns in Saami languages that have been borrowed or calqued from Finnic, Scandinavian or Russian. We define indefinite pronouns in the traditional way, i.e. encompassing all pronouns not belonging to any other pronoun class. The treatment of Saami indefinite pronouns in earlier literature varies, but generally they haven’t received as much attention as other pronouns. From Finnic sources, Saami languages have borrowed e.g. pronouns harva ‘few’, joku ‘some(one)’, kaikki ‘all’, moni ‘many’ and muu ‘other’ as well as pronominal elements ikänänsä ‘-ever’, saati ‘let alone’ and vaikka ‘even (if)’. Loans from Scandinavian include e.g. mange ‘many’, noen ~ någon ‘some’ and same ~ samma ‘same’. Russian loans include pronominal elements ни- ‘not (even)’ хоть ‘even (if)’. Indefinite pronouns in Saami prove to be rather an open class, and elements with similar meanings have been borrowed time after time. The variation is especially abundant in pronouns of indifference and free choice. Most of the pronouns in our data have been noted as loans before, but there are some unnoticed cases. Especially these warrant further study.