1 Adjective Classes in Typological Perspective 27phological possibilities than a verb in this slot; it can only take tense and aspect
suffixes if the inchoative derivation suffix is first added. It is likely that in Nung-
gubuyu adjectives are just beginning to take on grammatical properties similar to
those of verbs; see §9 below.
(3) In Tariana, an adjective can modify a noun and then agrees with it in number
and classifier. It may also function as predicate head and may then take tense/evi-
dentiality, aspect, mood, and most other suffixes that are available for a verb. This
was illustrated by (ia/b) in §2; see also Chapter 4 below.
There is an explanation for the rich syntactic possibilities available to adjec-
tives in Tariana. Their functioning as intransitive predicate is an inherited prop-
erty, shared with other Arawak languages. Their functioning as copula comple-
ment is a property which has been borrowed from East Tucanoan languages, as
one aspect of the large-scale diffusion of grammatical patterns that characterizes
the Vaupes linguistic area (to which Tariana and East Tucanoan languages belong).
See Aikhenvald (2002:153-74).
There are hints in the literature of further languages of this type, but insufficient
information to check them out in detail. For instance, Swadesh (1946: 320-1) says
of Chitimacha (an isolate, previously spoken in Louisiana): 'very much like cer-
tain kinds of verbs is the adjective, part of whose inflection coincides with that of
the verb, but which has two additional forms called the substantival singular and
plural. Moreover, it is precisely the substantival forms which are the most com-
monly used'.
In other languages, adjectives may be most similar to one of nouns and verbs,
but have some properties in common with the other. In Upper Necaxa Totonac,
adjectives have grammatical properties similar to those of nouns. However, an
adjective as copula complement may be modified by tunkd 'very'; nouns do not
take tunkd, but intransitive state verbs (e.g. 'be ashamed') do (Beck 2000: 233-4).
In the Australian language Emmi (Ford 1998:139-40), adjectives inflect like nouns
but are negated, like verbs, by the particle way (nouns, in contrast, are negated by
the negative copula piya).
6.4. ADJECTIVES GRAMMATICALLY DIFFERENT FROM BOTH VERBS AND NOUNS
In a further set of languages, the morphological and syntactic properties of adjec-
tives differ from those of verbs and of nouns. I will mention just three examples
of this.
(i) English. Only nouns may take a plural suffix; only verbs may take tense-aspect
suffixes; only adjectives may take comparative and superlative marking, shown
either by affixes (-er, -esf) or by pre-modifiers (more, most). An adjective cannot
occur as head of an NP^4 (while a noun can), nor as predicate (while a verb can).
(^4) There are a limited number of adjectives which are an exception to this statement, particularly
COLOUR terms; for example, / like a good full-bodied red (sc. wine).