172 Paulette Levy
To sum up, we have seen two types of semantic evidence for an adjective cat-
egory in PT. The first came from inchoative intransitive verb formation, the second
from causative transitive verb formation. For both, the verbs, like their adjective
bases, are construed as spontaneous events, properties that occur without external
Agent causers. Table 2 summarizes the morphological types and inchoativization
and causitivization processes. It also points out the special peculiarities of some of
the semantic types.
4.2. ABSTRACT NOUNS OF QUALITY
Questions about the extent to which an entity has a certain property are formed by
nominalizing the adjective, (50).
(50) nikuld xli:sa:sti milaqa':t?
nikuld ix-li:-sa:sti min-lhaqa':t
how 3POSS-iNST-new 2poss-clothes
'How new are your clothes?'
The nominalization derives abstract nouns that name the qualities and it takes the
form of the prefix /*':- plus the adjective, as shown in (51). It is a totally productive
process that yields abstract nouns of surprising specificity (e.g. ixli-.qalhalnaka' 'the
quality of being large, circular, and flat'). Of course, these nouns are not used ex-
clusively for extent questions they are regular nouns used to express the name of
the quality in other contexts (such as the comparatives of equality we saw in §2.4).
The process even applies to HUMAN PROPENSITY adjectives already derived from a
verb with //:-, as in li:-[li:ka'kni:t] 'attractiveness', literally 'its worth of causing one
to stare at it'.
(5i) Abstract noun
ixli:lanka'
ixli:lhma:n
ixli:ta:lhma:n
ixli:smalala
ixli:qama
ixli:sti'riki'
ixli:sqalala
ixlh:tli'waqa
ixli:pixtli'waqa
ixli:lhtuku'ni:wa
'bigness'
'length'
'height'
'dark-skinnedness'
'tastiness'
'circularity'
'intelligence'
'strength'
'strong-voiced-ness'
'thorniness'Adjective
lanka'
lhma:n
ta:lhma:n
smalala
qama
sti'riki'
sqalala
tli'waqa
pixtli'waqa
Ihtuk'un'big'
'long'
'high'
'dark, brown
'tasty'
'circular'
'intelligent'
'strong'
'strong in voice'
'thorn > lhtuku'ni:wa
'thorny'4.3. STRUCTURE OF THE LEXICON
There is one area of semantic overlap and it is that temperature as a physical prop-
erty of objects is expressed though adjectives such as chichi 'hot', qa'wiwi 'cold'
while temperature in the sense of weather is expressed by verbs. The expression