Adjective Classes - A Cross-Linguistic Typology

7 The Small Adjective Class in Jarawara 179

(1) [jobe]s {0 hawa to-he}

house(m) 3sg.inanS be.finished AWAY-AUXiLiARY:m

'the house is finished'

A clause such as (2) can be recast as a complement clause and function as S argu-

ment to hawa (to-)ha-, as in (3).

(2) {o-tafa}

isgS-eat:f

Tm eating'

(3) (oko tafi)s { 0 hawa to-ha}

isgS.POSS eatcoMPLEMENT.CLAUSE 3sg.inanS be.finished AWAY-AUXiLiARY:f

Tve finished eating' (lit. my eating is finished)

Note that the isg S argument is realized by prefix o- in the main clause, (2), but by

possessive form oko in the complement clause within (3). The complement clause

is marked as such by the final vowel a of the verb being raised to i (this mark is

missing where the final vowel of the verb in a complement clause is anything other

than a).

2 Predicate structure

The predicate is the most complex part of the grammar of Jarawara. We can here
just focus on those elements which are needed for the discussion of adjectives:

• First pronominal slot, marks O argument; obligatory in all transitive clauses.


• Second pronominal slot, marks S, A, or CS argument; obligatory in all clauses.


• Prefixes:
  
  
  • first prefix slot: one of o-, isg subject pronoun; ti-, 2sg subject pronoun; hi-,
    marker of an O-construction where both A and O arguments are 3rd person;
    to- 'away (from a place or from a state)';
  
  
  • second prefix slot: ka-, applicative;
  
  
  • third prefix slot: na- ~ niha-, causative.
  
  
  
  


• Verb root (and auxiliary); note that only a verb (not a noun or adjective) can
  function in this slot as predicate head.


• Twenty-plus orders of suffixes, including mood (declarative, interrogatives, im-
  peratives), tense/evidentiality, modality, and miscellaneous affixes which include
  -witiha 'from place', as in (8), -ine continuous', as in (12), -tee 'habitual', as in (17),
  and -ra, the negator, as in (17).

There are some further complications (see Dixon 2002, for a full statement). For

instance, a pronoun from the first or second pronominal slot is—under certain

conditions—repeated in a third pronominal slot just before mood, towards the end

of the predicate, as in (17) and (22). Late in the predicate there can be a 'secondary