Open class categories 75
reason that only these types of lexical items can occur in comparative and su-
perlative constructions while dynamic verbs cannot may be that properties are
the only type concept that can be compared. If this is the appropriate explana-
tion, the category adjective may be unnecessary. Adjectives may simply com-
prise a subcategory of verbs–’intransitive stative verbs’. In fact, adjectival pre-
dicates and intransitive dynamic verbs such as entar ‘go’, elang ‘disappear’,
kerem ‘sink’, labu ‘fall’ and a host of others share a property that distinguishes
them from most other verbs, including intransitive agentive verbs such as jalan
‘walk’, langoy ‘swim’ and others: they both lack any voice marking in their
basic use.
(39) a. Mored reya penter.
student this smart
‘This student is smart.’
b. Bengko rowa raja.
house that big
‘That house is big.’
(40) a. Mored rowa entar.
student that go
‘That student goes.’
b. Parao rowa kerem.
ship that sink
‘That ship sank.’
As discussed in Chapter 9, most other intransitive and transitive verbs must be
marked for voice in non-imperative sentences.
Adjectives, therefore, can be viewed as one kind of intransitive–
intransitive stative verbs–as opposed to the class of intransitive dynamic verbs.
Conceivably, the same semantic difference between these two classes of intran-
sitive verbs could account for the facts surrounding the ce’ X-na intensive con-
struction. Again, properties may simply be more amenable to this type of quan-
tification than are dynamic expressions.
However, there still remains the distributional property of noun modifica-
tion. Recall that only adjectives (or ‘intransitive stative verbs’) can directly
modify nouns. Other verbs cannot be used attributively but only predicatively.
Whether this can be explained solely in terms of the semantics of the verbs in
question is unclear. It has been argued that verb roots can be used in this way in
other related languages. For example, Klamer (1998) argues against a distinct
category adjective in Kambera, a language spoken on Sumba in central Indone-
sia, in part because many Kambera verbs can be used as attributive nominal