Adjective Classes - A Cross-Linguistic Typology

132 Nora C. England

kok'na 'fine-grained'

chmalnaj 'humid'

t'oqnaj 'soaked'

xulxaj 'tasteless'

txub'txaj contented, tranquil'

le'lj 'fordable (of a river)'

qloolj 'dark'

saasj 'light (weight)'

yutzutzuun 'afraid of punishment'

t'uququun 'easily used up; easily rots'

In addition, adjectives, like all other major classes of words, can be derived from

other adjectives through the addition of one of the prefixes ch-, s-, x-, xh-. These

prefixes freely derive new lexemes, at times with changes in meaning, but often

with no apparent change. Examples:

(26) b'a'j ~ sb'a'j 'fat'

jitz' ~ chjitz' ~ xhjitz' 'small, of grains'

leq ~ xleq ~ xhleq 'short'

q'an 'ripe' ~ xhq'an 'yellow'

k'aa 'bitter' ~ xk'aa 'stingy, self-centred'

In addition to the adjectives that are obviously derived because they include one of
the aforementioned suffixes, even if their roots are unattested in underived form,
there are a large number of adjectives that appear to be derived, both in terms of
their meanings and their forms, but whose status is less clear. In general these ad-
jectives have a long vowel or a vowel followed by a glottal stop, and in a few cases
are disyllabic. The problem of analysis arises because glottal stop or vowel length-
ening are processes that derive adjectives from positional, but adjectives can also
have roots with long vowels or vowels followed by glottal stops. While most roots
in Mam are monosyllabic, and transitive and positional roots are always CVC,
these restrictions do not apply to noun, adjective, or intransitive roots.
Thus, while piim 'thick' is undoubtedly an adjective root, and has been recon-
structed as such (Kaufman and Norman 1984), chuus 'smoking constantly' is more
likely to be a derived form, at least on the basis of meaning. Similarly, cha'x 'blue,
green is cognate with Protomaya ra'x (Kaufman 1974) and therefore most likely
a root, while ji'j 'thick, of bean soup or something similar' is less likely to be an
underived root. All disyllabic forms are suspect, but some, such as meeb'a 'poor', are
roots. This has been reconstructed as me'b'aa, a noun/adjective root for 'orphan/
widow(er)' and 'poor' (Kaufman and Norman 1984).
Lacking reconstructions for most of the suspect forms in Mam, and without
clear evidence of cognates in other Mayan languages that might solve the prob-
lem of deciding on their status, we are left with a fairly large number of adjectives
of ambiguous status. Discounting also the noun/adjective or positional/adjective