Re: Languages without adjectives

On Tue, 21 Mar 2000, Irina Rempt wrote:

> Valdyan makes no difference between nouns and adjectives; the
> distiction is purely semantic and usually expressed by word order.
>
>    razie bruve  "a good-looking young person" (of either sex)
>    bruve razie  "a young beauty"
>
> Some words have mostly adjectival meaning (like _carin_ "spicy";
> "spice" is _carisin_ "spicy things"), some mostly nominal meaning
> (like _crys_ "snow", and all words in -sen "thing"), but in theory
> any "noun" can be used both ways, and I don't mark them differently
> in the lexicon.
>
(de-lurking with YAAFMCL post)

Doraja (heretofore called Doraya) does it exactly the same way.  In
fact, in Doraja, there is no morphological distinction whatsoever
between nouns and adjectives, giving combinations like:

        _olar ilin_ 'day snow' = snowy day
        _ilin aelae_ 'snow shine' = shiny snow
        _aelae laeya_ 'shine bright' = bright shine

Nominal forms of verbs follow these same semantic patterns.  For
example, the verb _dila_ 'need' takes a derivational passive suffix
_-ta_; the resulting word can be used in the following ways:

        in-obar dila-ta ui dasja ina
        pl-paper need-PASS TOP 1-3pn have
        I have the needed papers.  (_dilata_ = adjective)

        in-dila-ta ui dasja ina
        pl-need-PASS TOP 1-3pn have
        I have the needed (things).  (_dilata_ = noun)

My other neglected conlang Kusthu" takes the exact opposite method and
uses lots of stative verbs in a manner syntactically identical to
relative clauses.  This is cool because Kusthu" has stative forms for
three tenses of verbs.  For example:

        _vikhak_ 'to be angry', _tsu_ 'man'
        _vikheth tsu_ 'angry man' (_-eth_ = present)
        _vikhikh tsu_ 'man that was angry' (_-ikh_ = past)
        _vikhineth tsu_ 'man that will be angry' (_-ineth_ = future)

These adjective-ish verbs can also be used as to make finite clauses:

        tsu ty vikh-0
        man NOM be.sad-3P
        The man is sad.

        tsu ty vikh-in
        man NOM be.sad-3F
        The man will be sad.

        etc.

Kusthu" also has a small set of adjective-ish words that pattern more
after post-nominal particles instead of verbs.  These include colors
(like _kedh_ 'blue' and _thu"d_ 'red'), location words (_kha_ 'there',
_ki_ 'here'), and words describing size (_suk_ 'big', _pseth_ 'small').
Even though Kusthu" is usually adamantly head-final, these adjectives
tend to follow the noun they modify.  Adjectives borrowed from other
languages also fall into this category (most importantly adjectives of
nationality, such as _movari_ 'Movari'), but they precede their head
like good little adjectives.  Examples:

        _thys thu"d_ 'river red' = red river
        _njath kedh_ 'sky blue' = blue sky
        _movari tsu_ 'movari man' = a Movari man

However, when used predicatively, this class of non-verbal adjectives
must be used with the copula _duwak_ 'to be':

        thys ty thu"d du
        river NOM red be.3P
        The river is red.

        tsu ki ty movari du
        man this NOM Movari be.3P
        This man is a Movari.

ObNatlang: Something that I'd like to try someday in a conlang is to
have adjectives function purely in an attributive manner, as in Hua,
where it's possible to say:

        bura fu nupa fu baie
        that pig black pig is
        "That pig is black"

but *not*

        *bura fu nupa baie
        that pig black is

That is, adjectives never occur as verbal predicates, only as part of
NPs.  Neat.  (Hua examples are from my Linguistics 120 lecture.  So it's
a useful class after all ...)

Later,
Adam

p.s. For those interested, as homework permits, I will soon be posting a
sketch of my new language Sisku, which was described by critics (Josh
Brandt-Young) as "Mephistophelean".  Commence drooling in anticipation.