Feature GB069: Do core adjectives (defined semantically as property concepts; value, shape, age, dimension) used attributively require the same morphological treatment as verbs?

Patrons: Jeremy Collins and Jay Latarche

Description ⇫

Summary

Do adnominal property words receive the same treatment as verbs when verbs are used attributively, i.e. inside an NP? The adnominal property word need not take exactly all verbal marking. If there is at least some marking that verbal and adnominal property words share, this counts as 1. The result need not be finite: participles count as attributively used verbs. This means that if the language in question forms modifying verbs by participles (the running man) and this is the same for adnominal property word roots (the redding man), this counts as 1. Property words semantically correspond to adjectives in those languages that have a separate adjective word class. We want to include elements that mark 'adjectival' function but that might not be described as 'adjectives.'

Procedure

  1. Code 1 if adnominal property words receive markers which are used on attributive verbs (e.g. participles or relativized verbs).
  2. Code 1 if neither adnominal property words nor attributive verbs receive marking.
  3. Code 0 if adnominal property words are obligatorily accompanied by elements which are not obligatory with attributive verbs.
  4. Code 1 if some adnominal property words follow this pattern whereas others do not.

Examples

Choctaw (ISO 639-3: cho, Glottolog: choc1276)

Coded 1. The grammar states that Choctaw likely does not have a lexical class of adjectives and that their meanings are conveyed via stative verbs. The author states, however, that is useful to use the term 'adjective' because they show "peculiarities not shared by other verbs." Choctaw verbs require a tense marker. Adnominal adjectives must also take a tense marker as seen in the examples below (Broadwell 2006: 50–51, 172–173, 221–225).

(1) Hattak  chaaha-h  pga-li-tok. 
man     tall-TNS  see:INCMPL-1SG.CL1-PST
‘I saw the tall man.’ (Broadwell 2006: 173)

(2) Hattak-at    chaaha-h.
man-NOM      tall-TNS
‘The man is tall.’ (Broadwell 2006: 51)

Akha (ISO 639-3: ahk, Glottolog: akha1245)

Coded 0. Adjectives are generally stative verbs, however, when used attributively they take the prefix jɔ- which denotes a temporary quality. This prefix does not appear on verbs (Hansson 2017: 893–894).

ŋɑ̀-sjhà         jɔ-né
CL.fish-fish    ADJ-red
‘red fish’ (Hansson 2017: 893)

Further reading

Dixon, R. M. W. 2010. Basic linguistic theory, Volume 2: Grammatical topics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

References

Broadwell, George Aaron. 2006. A Choctaw reference grammar. (Studies in the Anthropology of North American Indians.) Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Hansson, Inga-Lill. 2017. Akha. In Graham Thurgood & Randy J. LaPolla (eds), The Sino-Tibetan languages, 885–901. London: Routledge.


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