35Q John Hajek
this volume. All four languages spoken in the Americas are reported to have an
independent adjective class, as is Russian spoken in Europe. But of the seven lan-
guages spoken in the Asia-Pacific region, four (Lao, North-East Ambae, Qiang,
Semelai) are described by their respective authors in this volume as having adjec-
tives functioning as a verb sub-class. Korean is reported to have an independ-
ent verb-like class of adjective, while Japanese and Manange have split systems,
of which at least one primary component is verb-like. The Eurocentric tradition
referred to by Dixon is reinforced by a strong tendency, geographically focused
on (South-)East Asia, that has much to do with Sinitic and Austronesian linguis-
tic descriptive traditions whereby elements that are verb-like in behaviour are
assigned to the verb class.
There is, however, some evidence of a slow change in attitudes towards adjec-
tives under way in Asia, as has already occurred in Europe. Mandarin Chinese
is perhaps the best known and most frequently cited example of a language that
reportedly does not distinguish verbs and adjectives (e.g. Bhat 1994, Thompson
1988, Schachter 1985). But the existence of an independent adjective class has found
support amongst Chinese linguists (e.g. Xu 1988, Deng et al. 1996). As Dixon notes,
detailed investigation by Xu (1988) has uncovered a number of morphosyntactic
differences that point to a separation of adjectives and verbs in that language. More
recent research on Chinese adjectives has also determined the existence of a lit-
tle-known but relatively large class of non-predicative adjectives in Chinese (with
estimates varying from 200 to 400 per Deng et al. 1996). Since these adjectives are
apparently exclusively attributive and have no verb-like predicative functions, they
cannot be classed as verbal and should be recognized, as Deng et al. (1996) and
other Chinese linguists do, as adjectival. I return to the important issue of attribu-
tive-only adjectival elements towards the end of this chapter.
Attitudes to adjectives also show signs of slow change elsewhere in the wider
Sinicized area, including Korean and Japanese: the independent verb-like adjec-
tive class in Korean has in the past been called 'verbs', 'descriptive verbs', 'inflect-
ing words [i.e. verbs]' (e.g. Lee 1989, Lee and Ramsey 2000). A similar pattern is
observed for Japanese: its verb-like inflected adjectives have also been assigned to
the verb class in the past (see Dixon 1982 and Backhouse, Chapter 2, for details).
3 Adjectives in languages described in this volume
The characterization of adjectives varies significantly across the sample of thirteen
languages described in this volume, with some languages, as already noted, report-
ed not to have an independent class of adjectives, challenging the important claim
by Dixon in Chapter i that all languages will have three major word classes: noun,
verb, and adjective.
Seven languages are reported by authors to have an independent adjective class
(or classes). Of these, Jarawara, Mam, and Papantla Totonac all have a single adjec-
tive class. Russian and Tariana also have a single class but with significant internal