| Summary: | Abstract This thesis discusses the language contacts Skolt Saami has had over the centuries. The study consists of four separate research papers, each of which sheds light on these language contacts from different perspectives, as well as a comprehensive summary chapter that provides a complete picture of the impact the changing language environments have had on Skolt Saami. In the first paper, Koltansaamen myönteiset ja kielteiset fokuspartikkelit, I describe the historical background of the affirmative and negative focus particles in Skolt Saami and how their usage has changed over the years. I show that there are many focus particles in Skolt Saami that have been borrowed from different contact languages and that their usage has changed due to language contacts. In the second paper, Koltansaamen Näätämön murteen ja merisaamen välinen koodien sekoittuminen vuonna 1920, I study the code-mixing between Skolt and Sea Saami in texts collected from two Skolt Saami speakers. The texts contain a total of three registers in which the languages are combined in different ways. Both speakers also use words that can be considered hybrid forms of words from Skolt and Sea Saami. In the third paper, The fourth-person verb forms in Skolt Saami, my co-author Jussi Ylikoski and I discuss the fourth-person verb forms in Skolt Saami and how their use varies in different language environments. In addition, the study also sheds light on the use of the third person plural as an impersonal construction. In the fourth paper, Russian loanwords in Skolt Saami, I provide an overview of arguably the most significant loanword layer of Skolt Saami. Using phonological analyses, I demonstrate that most of the words have been borrowed from the northwestern dialects of Russian after the beginning of the 17th century. In addition to the phonological analyses, I study how loanwords were adapted to Skolt Saami and analyze the semantics of loanwords. Besides analyzing the loanwords, I discuss approximately 150 new loan etymologies. In my doctoral ...
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