7 The Small Adjective Class in Jarawara 189(12) [mee.fanawi hinama]s{n-ine-ke}
women(f) all bathe AUXILIARY-CONTINUOUS-DECLARATIVE^
'all the people bathing are women (and no one else)'
The adjective hinama can be preceded byfai (which is not attested outside this con-
text), the combination then being pronouncedfai.hinama orfai.inama orfainama.
It appears to mean 'the same' or 'the same size', as in:
(13) [o-jee fai(hi)nama]s{fama-ke}
isgPOSSESSOR-hand same.size be.two-DECLARATiVE:f
'my two fingers are the same size (lit. my fingers same size is two)'
A case could be made out for regarding fai(hi)nama as a fifteenth adjective. We
prefer to treat it as nonce form/az followed by the adjective hinama.
Adding to the stock of fourteen monomorphemic forms, there are a small number
of derived adjectives. A semi-productive process which involves adding -bate
to a verb, appears both to derive an adjective and to add an intensive meaning.
From verb -hiwa- 'be hot' is formed adjective hiwa-bote 'very hot', as in the cop-
ula clause:
(14) \jama]cs [hiwa-bote]cc {ama-ke}
thing(f) be.hot-VERY be-DECLARATiVE:f
'the weather (lit. thing) is very hot'
And from verb -amosa- 'be good' is derived adjective amosa-bote 'very good' as
in:
(15) [bani]cs [amosa-bote]cc {ama-ka}
animal(m) be.good-VERY be-DECLARATiVE:m
'the bird is very pretty' (lit. the animal is very good)
All the verbs attested with -bate are intransitive and inflecting, referring to states.
They include 'be cold', 'be strong', 'be strong-tasting', 'be mean, nasty', 'be angry', 'be
tall', and 'be many'.
Corresponding to intransitive verb -amosa- 'be good', there is the derived adjec-
tive amosa-wi 'very, very good' (we were told that this indicates a higher degree of
excellence than amosa-bote). This suffix -wi is not attested with any other word.
Derived adjectives may function as copula complements, as in (14-15), but not
as modifiers within an NP.
Adjectives do not take any affixes. We noted that one/owa 'another' can function
as an adjective or as a free noun, that there is a PN boteri/boteri 'oldness' related to
adjective botee 'old', that there is a derived intransitive verb hi.hinita -na- '(water)
be empty of (fish)' related to adjective hinita 'empty, alone', and that there is a verb
jati -na- 'be alive, be raw' which appears to be related to the adjective jati 'new,
young'. There are no other examples of nouns or verbs related to (or derived from)
adjectives.