Re: Adjectives as Verbs

Chris Bates wrote:

> If anyone has any I'd really like examples from as many different
> languages as possible which have verbs fulfilling the role of adjectives
> on how it works,
There's a section on this in the link posted the other day:

http://linguistics.buffalo.edu/people/faculty/dryer/dryer/clausetypes.pdf

Among others, it shows that some langs. "conjugate" adjs. just like other
verbs, as does Kash:
amami yamarok 'my father is old'
ama-mi ya-marok
father-my 3s-old

vs. kaç marok 'an old person'

amami yacosa kavatun 'my father went to Kawatu'
..  3s-go  (place)-acc.

how they do comparitives/superlatives, how they make
> the verb relative (are there any which use a relative pronoun? Or do
> they all inflect the verb to mark it as relative? etc). Thanks in Advance,
>
Bahasa Indonesia uses position and intonation to indicate that an adj. is a
predicate:

Rumah itu besar 'that/the house is big'
house that big

also: rumahnya besar 'his/their/the house is big'
    house-poss. big

Note placement of demonstrative/suffix, also there is a break in the
intonation before 'besar'

(You could also front the adj. for emphasis)

versus attributive:  rumah besar (itu) a/(that) big house
also: rumah yang besar itu same translation or 'the house that is big'
Note the demonstrative _after_ the entire NP, and the whole thing is an
intonational whole.

Not entirely sure how N+poss.+adj would be treated-- I suspect the adj.
would be relativized--
Rumah saya yang besar... lit. my house that is big 'my big house'

Comparatives use lebih 'more'-- lebih besar 'bigger'
Superlatives use paling 'most' usu. in a relative clause construction I
think (at least it sounds better to me): rumah yang paling besar itu 'the
biggest house'

A few superlatives are formed with prefix ter-:  terbaik 'best'

You are probably looking for something a little more complicated,
however....:-)))