92 Carol Ge.ne.ttl and Kristine Hildebrandt
The copula imo cannot occur in this construction, and the inflected verb ikhA-pA
constitutes the predicate.
When we contrast the behaviour of verb-like adjectives in these contexts, we
find that verb-like adjectives behave like verbs in the perfective, but that their
behaviour differs from verbs in the imperfective and irrealis. In perfective con-
texts, verb-like adjectives either inflect with -tsi (or are followed by the evidential
imi (ro)). In both cases the verb-like adjective is functioning as the intransitive
predicate of the clause:
(46) [ikhi]s [ithyA.-tsi]pRED
3Sg big-PERF
'He was big.'
Although verbs and verb-like adjectives show similar morphosyntactic behaviour
in the perfective aspect, they differ in the imperfective. Verb-like adjectives do not
inflect with -tee. Instead, they are suffixed by -pA and occur as complements of the
copula imo.^10 The syntactic structure here is identical to that found with predica-
tive simple adjectives:
(47) \3tni imile=ko]cs [2pef 2srur/-pA.]cc [imo]pRED
person life=DEF very short-NR COP
'Mans life/human life is very short.'
One negates this structure by prefixing the negative morpheme to the copula, re-
sulting in the suppletive negative form la-re (imo), e.g. imile-ko 2sruy-pA m-re
(imo) 'life is not short'. The ability of the copula to negate is evidence that it is an in-
dependent verb and constitutes the predicate. This stands in contrast to the imper-
fective construction found with non-adjectival verbs, where negation must prefix
to the lexical verb.
A second piece of evidence that this construction entails a copula with its com-
plement is that, as with simple adjectives in predicative contexts, the copula may
be omitted from this structure:
(48) \4thi 3nar/=ri]s [4$ol-pA]cc (imo)
house inside=LOC bright-NR (COP)
"The house is bright.'
(49) U?M]S [3tay-pA.]cc (imo)
isg happy-NR (COP)
T am happy.'
Once again, this structure is distinct from that found with non-adjectival imper-
fective verbs, where the verb inflects with -tee, and the copula is obligatory.
(^10) The five exceptional verb-like adjectives discussed in note 7 may occur without -pA in this pos-
ition, e.g. ir/A 2nA imo 'I am sick'.