Re: Languages without adjectives

<< Fredrik Ekman <ekman@...> wrote:
 >Some time ago I read an article about languages which mentioned in passing
 >that some languages have no or few adjectives, using (if I understood the
 >article correctly) nouns and verbs(?) for the same purposes. >>

I never could get things in on time.........
The general situation in Kash is:  when predicative, "adjectives" are verbs,
with person & tense markers--
    tica.ni ya.popor knife-his 3s-dull: 'his knife is dull''
    ..... ya.popor.sa  3s-dull-PAST 'his knife was dull'
and may have the usual derivatives: inchoative yupopor 'become dull',
causative rumbopor 'to dull s.t.' (or alternative periphrastic yukar popor,
rumek popor).  Attributively, they simply follow the noun:  tica popor 'a
dull knife'. (The inch. and caus. can't be used in this way, however, and
would have to be put in a relative clause.)  "The dull one", as in "he had
two knives, and gave me the dull one"  would be: ine ro tica, me yawelesa yu
popor [3s-DAT two knife, 1s-DAT 3s-give-PAST that dull].  The nominal
"dullness (of a tool)" could be ambopor, but in this case popondri (<popor.ni
'dull+3sPOSS')-- the regular nom. is more formal and "correct", but I suspect
there is no hard and fast rule for the choice.
Very likely, the class of verbs has to be divided into (1) "states"
(adjectives) and (2) "actions/processes" (in the broadest sense; verbs per
se),  No word class is marked in Kash; it depends on co-occurrence with
person/tense (verbs), case (nouns), or nothing (numerals & quantifiers,
particles, some modals).

Some of the more "verbal" bases can be used attributively, but so far tend to
be idiomatic-- cosa 'go': ro lero cosa 'two days ago',  lerosh (PL) cosa
'days ago, long time ago, in olden times'; kasi 'begin':  aciwar kasi
'beginning (first) lesson'; shindi 'speak': sende shindi '(the) spoken
language".  These cannot be further modified; "the language spoken by the X
people" would have to be relativized:  sende re X ishindi.