Adjective Classes - A Cross-Linguistic Typology

3 The Two Adjective Classes in Manange 75

The basic typological features of Manange are summarized briefly below. The
most extensive description of Manange may be found in Hildebrandt (2004);
Hoshi (1984,1986) is a more limited description.

Phonology

• Roots are generally monosyllabic
  . The basic syllable template is: (C)(C)V(C)


• There is a four-tone system; the domain of tone is the word^3

Word order

• The word order of basic constituents is generally AOV or SV, although OAV is
  also found

The Noun Phrase

• NP structure: (DEM) (REL) N (ADJ) (NUM) = (CLITICS)


• Clitics indicate plurality, defmiteness, and case


• No agreement in number, gender, case, honorific status, etc.

Verbs

• The only prefix is the negative prefix a-


• Manange has a small set of verbal suffixes:
  
  
  • -tsi perfective
  
  
  • -tsu continuous aspect (must be followed by copula)
  
  
  • -tso obligation
  
  
  • -tse clause chaining
  
  
  • -pA nominalizer
  
  
  • -pA-ri purposive
  
  
  • -pA-ni sequential linker
  
  
  
  


• There is also a set of post-verbal particles
  
  
  • imu, imi, a, ko, ro post-verbal evidential (sentence-final)
  
  
  • kyAHA conditional
  
  
  
  

2. Basic description and semantic analysis of simple

and verb-like adjective classes

Manange has two distinct lexical classes of words which code property con-
cepts. 'Simple adjectives' are similar to adjective classes in many Indo-European
languages, as they are clearly distinct from both nouns and verbs and they do
not occur with any derivational morphology in either attributive or predicative

(^3) Tones are transcribed as follows: On monosyllabic words /i/ marks low level, /2/ high level, /3/
very high falling, and /4/ mid-low falling.