Adjective Classes - A Cross-Linguistic Typology

9 The Adjective Class in Korean 229

Adjectives are limited mostly to declarative and interrogative sentences, where-
as verbs occur in prepositive, imperative, promissive, and admonitive sentences as
well. For example, adjectives with the imperative suffix -elal-ala, the prepositive
suffix -ca, the promissive -(u)mal(u)lkkey, or the admonitive -(«)//« in (8a) are
not grammatical. There are exceptions, however. Some commonly used human-

TABLE i. Grammatical properties of verbs and adjectives

Morphosyntactic features Verbs Adjectives

i All bound — requiring a clause-type ender

2 Inflects in all grammatical categories

3 Indicative suffix form within predicate slot

4 Can occur in prepositive and imperative

5 Can occur in promissive and admonitive

6 Function of clause-ender -alal-ela

7 Indicative suffix form in relative clause

8 Past relativizer form

9 Can occur with nominalizers and conjunc-

tive suffixes

10 Can take conjunctive suffixes -(u)lyeko,

-(u)le -koca, -nulako, -kose, -nuni

1 1 Can take intensifier -ti

12 Can have derivational affixes die-, cis-, nay-,

pi-, sel-, tes,yes-, -keli, -chi, -coli, -ttuli, -lay

13 Can have derivational affixes -sulep, -lop,

-tap, -ah, -tap, -talah, -kyep, -mac

14 Can have derivational suffix -ci

15 Can take causative suffixes

16 Meanings of noun + hata

17 Meanings of reduplication

18 Can form adverbs
19 Can form -ko iss progressive
20 Can form -el a iss resultative
21 Can occur in comparative and superlative
22 Can occur with phrases -ki wihaye, -ko

yes

yes

-nun after C

-n after V

yes

yes

imperative

-nu

-un after C

-n after V

yes

yes

no

yes

no

yes

(means process)

yes

activity or process

repeating or con-

tinuing action

no

yes

yes

no

yes

yes

yes

zero

rare

rare

exclamatory

zero

N/A

yes

no

yes

no

yes

yes

(means state)

yes (derives transi-

tive verbs)

property or state

continuing state

yes
no
no
yes
no
siphta
23 Can occur with all auxiliary predicates
24 Can occur with all thematic roles
25 Case marking of object
26 Can occur with negative adverbs an, mos

yes only some

yes only some

accusative (l)ul nominative kali

both an and mos only an