Substantiver

Substantiver er navneord – det kan være folk, steder, dyr, ting, prosesser eller abstrakte forhold, f.eks. Evvan 'Ivan' (et personnavn), Âʹvvel 'Ivalo' (et stedsnavn), nijdd 'jente', piânnai 'hund', säʹltt 'salt', histoor 'historie'.

Man kan avlede substantiver fra andre ordklasser, f.eks. ??. Her kan du lese mer om substantivavledning.

Nouns are generally declined in cases (i entall eller flertall). Cases are inflectional forms marking the function a noun has in a sentence. In Skolt Sámi we distinguish between nine different cases:

1. The nominative case is the base or presentational form: Põrtt lij mooččâd. 'The house is nice.'
2. The accusative case is the form marking the object: sieʹzz 'aunt' (in English, the direct, meaning accusative, object always occurs after the finite verb: I like my aunt.)
3. The genitive indicates the possessor: Põõrt pirrõs lij mooččâd. 'The surrounding area of the house is nice.' (Note that English uses the so-called of-genitive in most cases.)
4. The illative is used to indicate motion to or into something: Mon puäđam siõm põʹrtte. 'I am coming into this little house.'
5. The locative provides the notions on/at/in a place or from a place: Son jäälast siõm põõrtâst. 'She lives in this small house.'
6. The comitative is the case providing the meaning "with": siõʹzzin. 'with aunt' (as in: I came with my aunt.)
7. The abessive is used to indicate the lack or absence of something, i.e. providing the meaning "without": sieʹzztää 'without aunt' (as in: I had to go there without my aunt.)
8. The essive is the state case, which often gives the notion "as, like": sieʹssen 'as/like aunt' (as in: I am as tall as my aunt.)
9. The partitive case denotes the part of an entity and is used after higher numerals and other quantifiers: lååi sieʹssed 'ten (of the) aunts'

The essive and partitive cases occur only in the singular.

Hos substantiver kan det skje det en del forandringer i form når de skal bøyes. Det finnes ulike bøyningsendelser pluss eventuelle forandringer i ordstammen. Disse stammeforandringer, f.eks. vokalendring, stadieveksling og palatalisering, blir behandlet i kapitlet om morfofonologi.

There is also allomorphy in inflectional suffixes. The inflectional stem and relevant affixes are determined by the inflectional class (I-IX) a noun belongs to, while the sub-group (A, B or C) stipulates which kind of sound change the stem vowel will undergo. Here you can read more about noun inflexion og fleksjonsklasser.