Adjective Classes - A Cross-Linguistic Typology

3 The Two Adjective Classes in Manange 79

ica 'small'
3rurj 'long'
isrurj 'wide/fluffy'
ithurj 'wide/thick/solid'
iphrA 'thin/fine/strand-like or particulate'
There are only two simple adjective in the DIMENSION class. One is ^kathe (another
pronunciation is 3/caf/ie) 'thin, used of animates. Its antonym 2mre 'fat'is a verb-like
adjective. The other simple adjective is ^tsok 'vertically straight'. The remaining six
verb-like adjectives of dimension mostly form antonymic pairs. The verb-like ad-
jective ica is in an antonymic relationship with both ithyA 'big', and yurj 'long', as
it can refer both generally to dimension to mean 'small' and to length in particular,
hence 'short'. It is not clear that 2phrA 'fine' and 2thuy 'wide' are true antonyms, as
2phrA has the dual meaning of'strand-like', as in hair or noodles, and 'particulate-
sized', as in flour or powder.

2.4.6. POSITION

There are only four POSITION adjectives in Manange that we know of. They form

antonymic pairs: yiarj 'low' is a simple adjective, and ^no 'high' is a verb-like adjec-

tive. The verb-like adjective meaning 'near/close' is 492, which contrasts with the

phrasal adjective $ta yurj 'far'.

2.4.7. VALUE

The VALUE adjectives are listed in (7):

(7) Simple adjectives Verb-like adjectives

isitAri 'free/no charge' iku 'expensive'

3noto 'true/honest' ikhe 'cheap'

Other than 2sitA,ri 'free,' the only simple adjective which conveys VALUE is 3yoto

'true'. When modifying humans, the same adjective means 'honest', a HUMAN PRO-

PENSITY concept. Thus this adjective is amenable to classification in more than

one semantic category, depending on the features of the modified noun. Other ex-

amples are discussed in §2.5.

2.4.8. PHYSICAL PROPERTY

There are a large number of PHYSICAL PROPERTY terms in both the simple and

verb-like adjective classes. They are listed in (8):

(8) Simple adjectives Verb-like adjectives

4pholtorj 'round' mA 'ill'

iplisur 'square' ithu gravely ill'

ikurkur 'crooked' mye 'decayed'

iseedha 'straight' 4khyarj 'weak'

3narj 'full' snurj 'broken/busted/destroyed'

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