2 Inflected and Uninflected Adjectives in Japanese 53TABLE 3.Inflected adjective Verb (negative)2.1.2. Lexical derivation
The main lexical derivational processes for inflected adjectives are set out and
illustrated in Table 4, with relevant indications for verbs given for comparison.
There are clear differences here. Adverb formation is widespread with adjectives
but restricted with verbs. Both adjectives and verbs produce derived nouns, but
through different primary processes: with adjectives, the most productive process
is the formation of abstract nouns by suffixation of -sa, whereas verbs form nouns
(both abstract and concrete) through conversion. While excessive verbs in -sugiru
and adjectives of appearance in -500 are shared with verbs, verbs of external mani-
festation in -garu and graded adjectives in -me are restricted to adjectives.2.1.3. Syntax
Here we review important syntactic properties of inflected adjectives, once more
with comparative comments for verbs.(a) Head of intransitive predicate, like (intransitive) verbs; i.e. inflected adjectives
function predicatively without a copula:
(i) Usagi no mimi wa naga-i
rabbit ADNOM ear TOP long-NONPAST
'Rabbits' ears are long'
(b) Where two arguments of an inflected adjective are present, one is marked by
ga (NOM), the other )j ga (NOM), ni (DAT, etc.), to (RECIP, etc.), kara (SOURCE); un-
like with many positive and negative verbs, marking of a second argument with o
(ACC) is found only rarely with, for example, hosii 'want (sth), (find) desirable', and
marking with ga (NOM) is also found with such items. For example:
Non-past naga-i oki-na-i 'not get up'
Conjunctive naga-ku oki-na-ku
Past naga-katta oki-na-katta
Provisional naga-kereba oki-na-kereba
te-conjunctive naga-kute oki-na-kute
Conditional naga-kattara oki-na-kattara
Representative naga-kattari oki-na-kattari
Imperative — oki-ru-na
zw(-m')-conjunctive — oki-zu(-ni)
«aicie-conjunctive — oki-na-ide
(Cf. also formal nonpast naga-i-desu oki-na-i-desuloki-mas-eN)