7 The Small Adjective Class in Jarawara 179
(1) [jobe]s {0 hawa to-he}
house(m) 3sg.inanS be.finished AWAY-AUXiLiARY:m
'the house is finished'
A clause such as (2) can be recast as a complement clause and function as S argu-
ment to hawa (to-)ha-, as in (3).
(2) {o-tafa}
isgS-eat:f
Tm eating'
(3) (oko tafi)s { 0 hawa to-ha}
isgS.POSS eatcoMPLEMENT.CLAUSE 3sg.inanS be.finished AWAY-AUXiLiARY:f
Tve finished eating' (lit. my eating is finished)
Note that the isg S argument is realized by prefix o- in the main clause, (2), but by
possessive form oko in the complement clause within (3). The complement clause
is marked as such by the final vowel a of the verb being raised to i (this mark is
missing where the final vowel of the verb in a complement clause is anything other
than a).
2 Predicate structure
The predicate is the most complex part of the grammar of Jarawara. We can here
just focus on those elements which are needed for the discussion of adjectives:
- First pronominal slot, marks O argument; obligatory in all transitive clauses.
- Second pronominal slot, marks S, A, or CS argument; obligatory in all clauses.
- Prefixes:
- first prefix slot: one of o-, isg subject pronoun; ti-, 2sg subject pronoun; hi-,
marker of an O-construction where both A and O arguments are 3rd person;
to- 'away (from a place or from a state)'; - second prefix slot: ka-, applicative;
- third prefix slot: na- ~ niha-, causative.
- first prefix slot: one of o-, isg subject pronoun; ti-, 2sg subject pronoun; hi-,
- Verb root (and auxiliary); note that only a verb (not a noun or adjective) can
function in this slot as predicate head. - Twenty-plus orders of suffixes, including mood (declarative, interrogatives, im-
peratives), tense/evidentiality, modality, and miscellaneous affixes which include
-witiha 'from place', as in (8), -ine continuous', as in (12), -tee 'habitual', as in (17),
and -ra, the negator, as in (17).
There are some further complications (see Dixon 2002, for a full statement). For
instance, a pronoun from the first or second pronominal slot is—under certain
conditions—repeated in a third pronominal slot just before mood, towards the end
of the predicate, as in (17) and (22). Late in the predicate there can be a 'secondary