Adjective Classes - A Cross-Linguistic Typology

8o Carol Ge.ne.ttl and Kristine Hildebrandt

When one looks closely at the membership in each of the classes, one can find in-
teresting differences between them. A major sub-class of PHYSICAL PROPERTY is
SHAPE, and all shape terms in Manange are simple adjectives, e.g. 4pholtorj 'round'
and 2kurkur 'crooked'. There are no verb-like adjectives with shape meanings. In-
stead, the majority of verb-like adjectives in the PHYSICAL PROPERTY class indicate
SENSORY PERCEPTIONS, such as temperatures, flavours, hardness, sharpness, and
the like. There is also a sub-class of terms indicating ILLNESS or DECAY, including
2?u 'ill', ithu gravely ill', 'decayed', and possibly 4khyarj 'weak', ^nurj 'broken, busted',
and 4$ha 'cracked, broken. A number of these verb-like adjectives are in antonym-
ic pairs, including two formed by the negative prefix: 2tsarj ~ 2atsarj 'clean-dirty',
and 2cher~2a-cher 'sharp-dull'. It should also be noted that the word for 'straight'
is borrowed from Nepali.

2.4.9. DIFFICULTY

DIFFICULTY is one of only two semantic categories which have no simple adjective
members. The only monomorphemic member of this class is the verb-like adjec-
tive pol 'simple'. The term 'difficult' is phrasal, 4/co/e I/C/M, composed of the simple
adjective 'slow' and the verb 'come'.

2.4.10. HUMAN PR OPENSITY

The other semantic class whose members are exclusively verb-like adjectives is
HUMAN PROPENSITY. These are listed in (9):

Simple adjectives

itharj 'flat'

ithe 'empty'

imona 'dark'

ikharkyA 'dry'

ikhurj 'hollow'

ishilki 'bald'

3ye 'steep'

Verb-like

4sha

itsarj

latsarj

icher

2a-cher

skyorj

3ce

3i)ye

4sol

4khor

imi

2kyurj

iki~ki

2tsha

3pla

2kharj

lie

4tshe

adjectives

'cracked/broken

'clean, transparent'

'dirty'

'sharp'

'dull'

'hard'

'soft'

'melodious'

'clear, bright, sparkling'

'bent'

'ripe'

'sour'

'bitter'

'spicy'

'cold liquids'

'cold climate'

'warm/hot liquids'

'hot climate'

icorj-cocorj 'same, similar'