Adjective Classes - A Cross-Linguistic Typology

7 The Small Adjective Class in Jarawara 193

Or it can have a second argument, in what we call copula complement function;
this comes between the copula subject NP and the copula verb, as in:

(25) [okoto]cs [biroto]cc {ama-ke}
isgPOSSESSOR:daughter(f) pilot be-DECLARATiVE:f
'my daughter is a pilot'

Now a copula complement can be a full NP or just an adjective, as in:

(26) {faja}cc{#»?« o-ke}
enough be isgCS-DECLARATiVE:f
'I (have said) enough (lit. I am enough)' (said at the conclusion of a story)

(27) [jifari]cs[tati]cc{ama-ke}
banana(f) unripe be-DECLARATiVE:f
'the banana is unripe'

Note that an adjective can also be modifier within the subject NP of a single-
argument copula clause, as in:

(28) \jifaritati]cs {ama-ke}
banana(f) unripe be-DECLARATiVE:f
'it is an unripe banana (lit. unripe banana is)'

The sentenced/an tati ama-ke is thus ambiguous between the parsing and mean-
ing in (27) and those in (28); it would be likely to be disambiguated by the dis-
course context.
Note that there is no comparative construction in Jarawara.

5.3. DISTINGUISHING ADJECTIVES FROM POSSESSED NOUNS

At first blush, adjective and PN have rather similar grammatical properties; most
basically, both may follow the head of an NP. There are, however, a number of cri-
teria for distinguishing them.

(A) Place with respect to mee within an NP. It will be seen, from the statement of
NP structure in Table 2, that the augment modifier mee (slot Biii) will follow an
adjective (slot Bii), but precede a PN (slot C). That is, we can have adjective-plus-
mee, as in:

(29) [haaha]cs [bani howe mee]cc {ama-ke}
THis:f animal(m) large.type AUGMENT be-DECLARATiVE:f
'these are animals of a large type'

And we can get mee-plus-PN, as in:

(30) [jara mee tame]cs {ama-ke}
white.man(m) AUGMENT foot:f be-DECLARATiVE:f
'the white men's feet'