56 Anthony E. Backhouse
(12) Haya-i hoo ga i-i (Inflected adjective)
early-NONPAST alternative NOM good-NONPAST
'It had better be soon
(13) Hayaku ika-na-i hoo ga i-i (Negative verb)
soon go-NEG-NONPAST alternative NOM good-NONPAST
'(They) had better not go soon'
(14) Hayaku it-ta hoo ga i-i (Positive verb)
soon go-PAST alternative NOM good-NONPAST
'(They) had better go soon
(15) Asu wa kasa ga at-ta hoo
tomorrow TOP umbrella NOM exist-PAST alternative
ga i-i (TV) (Positive stative verb)
NOM good-NONPAST
'Tomorrow it will be better to have an umbrella'
(h) In the constructions in (f) and (g), inflected adjectives fall together syntactical-
ly with negative verbs. By contrast, in the construction clause +yooni so that clause
comes about/lest clause come about', the predicate of the clause is regularly filled
by positive and negative verbs, rather than by inflected adjectives. Note that stative
verbs (again, aru 'be located, exist') occur as in (18) (from Martin 1975: 998).
(16) Samu-ku nara-na-i yooni kiotuke-te kudasai
feel.cold-coNj become-NEG-NONPAST so.that take.care-fecoNj please
'Take care not to become cold'
(17) ?Samu-ku na-i yooni kiotuke-te kudasai
feel.cold-coNj NEG-NONPAST
'Take care not to be cold'
(18) Wasuremono ga na-i yooni gotyuui kudasai
forgotten.things NOM exist.NEG-NONPAST
'Please make sure not to leave anything behind'
(i) Most inflected adjectives, but not all, are modified adverbially by graders such
as kiwamete 'extremely', hizyoo ni 'very', hikakuteki 'comparatively', yori 'more' (cf.
Martin 1975:143, 797-8), and by intensifies such as zitu ni 'truly'. This property is
shared with adverbs, but also with some verbs and some nouns (of relative place/
time, etc.). Unlike very and other items in English, no graders are restricted to the
modification of adjectives/adverbs in Japanese.
The above syntactic properties of inflected adjectives as compared with verbs are
summarized in Table 5. While inflected adjectives differ from all verbs on only
one of the parameters reviewed (occurrence with yooni), they differ from positive