3 The Two Adjective Classes in Manange 81(9) Verb-like adjectives
ikyo sad/mournful' 3tarj 'happy'
3SA good/tasty/wholesome' 3a-SA evil, bad'
ikye 'pretty/nice' 2a-kye 'unpleasant, ugly'
itsIiAr 'lazy' la-tshAr 'busy, enterprising'
3tu 'poor' 4phlo 'rich'
ipyarj 'clever' 2a-pyarj stupid'
3myo 'crazy'
ichurj 'charming'
iche 'intimate'
In this category there are six antonymic pairs. Four of these pairs are differentiated
by the presence of the negative prefix a-, for example 2kye 'pretty/pleasant' vs. 2a-
kye 'ugly, unpleasant'. There are a few other antonymic pairs formed in this man-
ner in other semantic classes, but this does not appear to be a productive process.
While all verb-like adjectives may take the negative prefix in predicative contexts
(see below), only a small handful can carry the prefix into the noun phrase in at-
tributive contexts: 3mi ^a-SA-pA MIA imo 'a bad person comes'. We take this as an
indication that these forms have lexicalized into independent adjectives.
It should be noted, however, that the negative prefix is not found in predica-
tive environments. There the antonymic relationship is marked through a negated
phrasal structure, as in this example:
(10) 4thi=ri 4$ol-pA m-re imo imu
house=LOC bright-NR NEG-COP COP EVID
'It is dim in the house/not bright in the house.'
2.4.11. Other
We only found one adjective which we found difficult to classify in any of the cat-
egories listed by Dixon (1982, ch. i). This is 4fho 'shared, communal', a verb-like
adjective.
3. Phonological, morphological, and syntactic
properties of simple adjectives
3.1. PHONOLOGICAL PROPERTIES
As mentioned briefly in the typological overview above, most lexical items in Man-
ange have a simple phonotactic structure of C(C)V(C). Onset consonants maybe
either unvoiced obstruents or sonorants. The second consonant in the onset is re-
stricted to the small set of sonorant consonants: /n, 1, r, y/. The coda position is even
more restricted to final /n, 1, r/, with /r/ and /!/ occurring infrequently. Disyllabic
monomorphemic roots are infrequent in Manange, and many di- and trisyllabic
words are the result of lexicalization of old compounds. The word-medial conson-
ants of disyllabic stems are restricted: aspirated stops and coronals are rare in this