6 Adjectives in Papantla Totonac 1492 Syntax
Adjectives in PT can be distinguished from verbs with two criteria: (a) they do
not take TAM inflection, and (b) they cannot be heads of a predicate without der-
ivation. Adjectives can be distinguished from nouns both by syntactic and inflec-
tional criteria, as we will show below. Table i is a guideline to all the diagnostics.
2.1. WITHIN THE NP
2.1.1.
Adjectives can modify a noun in an NP directly, without derivation or further
syntactic apparatus. Examples (i)-(4) show different morphological and semantic
types of adjectives as modifiers in both Subject and Object NPs.
(1) kakima:xi' [aqtum palha' chiwix]^P
ka-kin-ma:xi:-f aq-tum palha chiwix
iMPER-iOBj-give.it-2SUBj NUMCL:general-one hard stone
'Give me one hard stone.'
(2) Milh [cha:-tum aqsqalala qa'wasa[^P
min-l cha:'-tum aqsqalala qa'wasa
come-CFL NUMCL:human-one intelligent boy
An intelligent young man came.'
(3) ni: kakiwani [Maqapuca fcwe«fo]NP
ni: ka-kin-wan-ni-f li:-laqapucd-f kwento
NEC iMPER-iOBj-say.it-BEN.2SUBj iNST-sad.(Vintr)-ADjR story
'Don't tell me a sad story!'
(4) kama:qi:nu' [chi't-wa milhaqa:'t[^p
ka-ma:-qi:nu:-f chi't-wa min-lhaqa:'t
iMPER-CAUS-on.the.side(V.st)-2SUBj wring.it.out-ADjR 2poss-clothes
'Take away your wet clothes!'
2.1.2.
Adjectives cannot be the heads of NPs without further apparatus. (5) is, therefore,
ungrammatical.
(5) kakima:xi' [(aqtum) palha']^P
ka-kin-ma:xi:-f (aq-tum) palha'
iMPER-iOBj-give.it-2SUBj NUMCL:general-one hard
'Give me (a) hard (one).'
2.1.3.
Nouns can be inflected for possession, adjectives cannot, as shown in (6).
palha' chiwix