1 Adjective Classes in Typological Perspective 29They cannot directly modify a head noun in an NP but must first be nominalized
(just as a verb must be).
It was remarked in §5 that, as a consequence of the Eurocentricism of much lin-
guistic work, there is sometimes a reluctance to use the term 'adjective' for a class of
words which does not have similar grammatical properties to nouns (as adjectives
do in European languages). From this viewpoint, words which cannot function as
modifier within an NP (except in nominalized form) may appear un-adjective-
like. As a consequence, Derbyshire (1979,1985) prefers not to use the label 'adjec-
tive' for the class of words just described, in Hixkaryana and other north Carib
languages. However, Derbyshire's preferred label, 'adverbs', is scarcely appropriate;
an adverb cannot normally occur as copula complement. This word class in Carib
languages is certainly not a typical adjective class, since it does not have function
(b), but it is no more untypical than those languages—in set (i)—whose adjectives
only occur as nominal modifier and lack function (a).
The semantic content of the non-prototypical adjective classes in languages of
sets (i) and (2) do accord with the scheme outlined in §1.1. Malayalam and Yoruba
each have about fifteen members in their adjective classes, Hua has four, and Dag-
bani has about seventy. They are:
- Malayalam: four DIMENSION, three AGE, one VALUE, plus 'humble' and 'various',
'few', 'any', 'other', 'this particular'.
« Hua: two DIMENSION ('big', 'little'), two PHYSICAL PROPERTY ('raw, false', 'wild,
not tame').
« Yoruba: two DIMENSION, two AGE, three VALUE, three PHYSICAL PROPERTY, five
HUMAN PROPENSITY. - Dagbani: five or more in each of DIMENSION, AGE, VALUE, COLOUR; about twenty
in PHYSICAL PROPERTY, etc.
For set (2), about thirty adjectives are reported for Hixkaryana and about forty-
four for Tiriyo. These include terms from DIMENSION, VALUE, PHYSICAL PROPERTY,
HUMAN PROPENSITY, and SPEED (AGE terms are nouns while COLOUR are derived
adjectives). But the adjective class in north Carib languages also includes terms for
QUALIFICATION ('all') and NUMBER ('one', 'two') together with items relating to PLACE
('hither', 'thither', 'beyond', 'this side of) and TIME ('later', 'soon, 'now', 'yesterday').
It is perhaps not surprising that the Carib adjective class, which functions only
as copula complement and as adverb, should include words of place and time
which are typically coded as adverbs in other languages.
Set (3), adjectives which only function as intransitive predicates, and lack func-
tion (b). In some of the languages with verb-like adjectives that can function as in-
transitive predicate, both adjectives and verbs may modify a noun through a rela-
tive clause construction. As mentioned in §6.1.3, it is often the case that a relative
clause marker is obligatory with a verb but optional with an adjective; adjectives
could thus be said to have function (b), modifying a noun directly; these would