Open class categories 63
penter ‘smart’ sapenter
kene’ ‘small’ sakene'
Considering the paradigm, which can be replicated manyfold, sa- emerges as a
diagnostic of the category noun. In order for any of the other roots to occur with
the sa- prefix, derivational morphology must occur as well, morphology which
typically derives nouns. So, while toles and penter cannot occur with sa-, de-
rived nominals based on them can. In (3), the suffix -an derives a result nominal
and the circumfix ka-...-an derives an abstract noun.
(3) tolesan ‘writing’ satolesan ‘all the writing’
kapenterran ‘intelligence’ sakapenterran ‘all of the intelligence’
The fact that only derived forms of these roots can take sa- corroborates its use-
fulness as a diagnostic for nouns.
While this is really the only clear morphological test for nouns, there are
syntactic tests as well. First, of the open lexical classes only nouns can be ne-
gated with the morpheme banne ‘no’.
(4) banne bengko ‘no house’
banne saba ‘no field’
banne bapa' ‘no father’
banne baca
banne toles
banne entar
banne sala
banne penter
banne kene'
The other forms in (4) are negated with ta' (or its dialectal equivalent lo'), which
cannot be used with nouns.
(5) ta' bengko
ta' saba
*ta' bapa'
ta' baca ‘not read’
ta' toles ‘not write’
ta' entar ‘not go’
ta' sala ‘not wrong’
ta' penter ‘not smart’
ta' kene' ‘not small’
Again, derived forms of the verbs and adjectives are acceptable with banne.