Open class categories 73
number of grammatical properties. There are, however, some ways in which the
two seem to differ. Adjectives but not verbs (or nouns) are able to combine with
the degree modifier ce' ‘very’ and the suffix -na to form an intensive construc-
tion: ce' precedes the adjective, which is marked with the definite suffix -na.^11
(34) sala ‘wrong’ ce' salana ‘very wrong’
penter ‘smart’ ce' penterra ‘very smart’
kene' ‘small’ ce' kene'na ‘very small’
bengko ‘house’ ce' bengkona
saba ‘field’ ce' sabana
bapa' ‘father’ ce' bapa'na
baca ‘read’ ce' bacana
toles ‘write’ ce' tolessa
entar ‘go’ ce' entarra
Adjectival roots can occur in comparative and superlative constructions, whe-
reas verbs and nouns cannot. Examples in (35) illustrate this for superlatives.
(35) sala ‘wrong’ paleng sala ‘most wrong’
penter ‘smart’ paleng penter ‘smartest’
kene' ‘small’ paleng kene' ‘smallest’
bengko ‘house’ paleng bengko
saba ‘field’ paleng saba
bapa' ‘father’ paleng bapa'
baca ‘read’ paleng baca
toles ‘write’ paleng toles
entar ‘go’ paleng entar
Finally, adjectival roots can directly modify nouns in post-nominal position.
Verbs which form the basis for nominal modifiers cannot occur in their root
form but require derivational or inflectional morphology and must occur in a
modifying relative clause to be grammatical. The examples in (36) show that
the adjective roots raja ‘big’, koros ‘thin’, and penter ‘smart’ occur as modifiers
in immediate postnominal position, while the uninflected verbal roots gabay
‘make, build’, terro ‘want’, kennal ‘know’, dhapa' ‘arrive’ cannot.^12
(^11) As discussed in Chapter 4 section 1.2.1, in the dialect spoken in Bangkalan, -na has
the allomorph -eng (/ə/) when affixed to a word ending in []. This occurs in the inten-
sive construction as well, so ce' kene'na ‘very small’ surfaces as ce' kene'eng ([cɛ
kɛnɛə].
(^12) It is important to interpret the final four examples as NPs and not sentences. Some of
them might be acceptable as sentences to some speakers, e.g. Bungkos dhapa' ‘A pack-