354 John Hajek
of comparison is expressed in the same sentence or in preceding discourse. It is
restricted to adjectives and some verbs expressing gradient concepts.
Tariana is the only language reported to have different comparative construc-
tions according to word class. In this language, the standard of comparison is typ-
ically omitted. Quality expressed by an adjective can be compared by means of the
comparative enclitic =iha, e.g. kadite 'black' and kadite=iha 'blacker (than another
one)'. Verbs, but not nouns, can also be compared, but require the verb -yena 'to
pass, to exceed':
(2) kiaku di-yena-naka
be.strong3sg.NONFEM-exceed-pRES.vis
'he exceeds (the other one) in strength; he is stronger than X'
In Wolof, with the most verb-like of all adjectives, verbs and adjectives share the
same type of comparative construction involving the verb gen(a) 'to be better, to be
more, to surpass'. However, the language is unusual in having rare examples of in-
herently comparative adjectives, seen in (3). These provide some support in favour
of distinguishing adjectives in that language.
(3) (a) njool 'tall' sut 'to be taller/more competent than
rafet 'pretty', baax good' daq 'to be prettier/better at than'
(b) Aamadu moo sut Ibu
Amadou 3sg taller Ibou
'Amadou is taller than Ibou'
Authors in this volume are not equally consistent in the diagnostic weight they as-
sign to the comparative in terms of categorizing adjectives. In most cases (Mam,
Papantla Totonac, Russian, and Tariana) where the adjective class is recognized
as an independent class and the comparative is used as an important distinguish-
ing criterion in its favour, adjectives are typically or optionally non-predicative
in major clauses. Korean with its verb-like adjective class is the only exception.
But in the cases of North-East Ambae, Lao, Qiang, and Semelai, the existence of a
comparative restricted to adjectives is used by their respective authors to delim-
it, along with other criteria, a specific sub-class of stative or stative-like verbs. It is
not considered sufficient to override the strongly verbal nature of adjectives seen
in their predicative function. In other languages, the existence of a morphologic-
al comparative restricted to a (small) subset of adjectives, as reported in Semelai,
is sometimes considered an important criterion in favour of word class status for
adjectives.
7 Intensifier
At least five languages (Korean, Lao, Qiang, Semelai, and Tariana) have an intensi-
fier that is either uniquely applied to adjectives or has a specific meaning of inten-
sification only with adjectives. This phenomenon occurs in our sample only with