194 R- M. W. Dixon
Note that we cannot get PN-plus-mee. That is, *jara teme mee is ungrammatical.
(This is a consequence of the fact that, as pointed out in §4, an NP including a PN
counts as inanimate, and mee can only be applied to animates.)
We can, of course, get adjective (slot Bii)-plus-mee-plus-PN, as in jam howe mee
tame 'the feet of the large type of white men and mee-plus-PN-plus-adjective (slot
Ci), as in jam mee tame ehebotee 'the large feet of the white men.
(B) Possibilities as copula complement (CC). A CC can be an NP (with the full
structural possibilities set out in Table 2) or just an adjective. It cannot be just a PN.
That is, an adjective can make up a complete CC or can modify a noun within an
NP which is CC, but a PN can only modify a noun within an NP which is CC.
It was mentioned that corresponding to the adjective botee 'old', there is a PN
boterilboteri bldness'. These can be used to illustrate the different possibilities for
adjective and for PN within a copula clause. Using the adjective botee, one can say
both:
(31) [Jowao]cs [botee]cc {ama-ka} waha
name(m) old be-DECLARATiVE:m NOW
'Joao is now old'
(32) [Jowao]cs [iti botee]cc {ama-ka} waha
name(m) grandfather old be-DECLARATiVE:m NOW
'Joao is now an old grandfather'
Using the possessed noun boterilboteri we can only have a sentence corresponding
to (32), where the PN modifies the noun iti grandfather, elderly relative':
(33) [Jowao]cs [iti boteri]cc {ama-ka} waha
name(m) grandfather old be-DECLARATiVE:m NOW
'Joao is now an old grandfather'
We cannot have a sentence corresponding to (31) where boteri makes up the whole
CC. That is, *Jowao boteri ama-ka waha is unacceptable.
(C) Gender marking within an NP. Only two adjectives show distinct f and m forms,
but these do provide a third criterion for distinguishing adjectives from PNs.
Recall from Table 4 that if two PNs follow a 1/2 nsg pronoun, each must be in
m form, as in:
(34) [ee mano bako]
insg.inc.POSSESSOR arm:m inside:m
'our (inc) inside arms'
We can examine what happens when an nsg pronoun is followed by a PN and then
an adjective. The PN is in m form, as expected, but the adjective is in f form. Ex-
amples include (21) and: