The category of adjective in Southern Guaykuruan Languages.

VIDAL, ALEJANDRA; KLEIN, HARRIET M.

WORD (WORCESTER)

Word. Journal of the International Linguistic Assocciation

Lugar: New York; Año: 2002 vol. 53 p. 321 - 340

0043-7956

Southern Guaykuruan (SG) languages (Pilagá, Toba and Mocoví) includes forms that look more like nouns (they manifest both gender and number categories) and formsthat look like verbs (they inflect for number, but not for gender). Genderaffixes on adjectives coincide with gender markers used for nouns. However, adjectives do not share the feature of possession with nouns. Furthermore,most adjectives, or PROPERTY CONCEPT WORDS that inflect for numberand gender are in the semantic categories of color and dimension.Words denoting properties, states and qualities which have only numberare more verb-like. These translate as adjectives, do not occur with a copula,and can take verbal inflection (aspect, directionality, negation). Some adjectival concepts are expressed by full-fledged verbs, with the subjectpronominal prefix functioning as the sole argument of the predicate. Thereare also a few adjectives with unknown etymologies that cannot be synchronically derived from nouns or verbs. We conclude that in SG languages there is a class of prototypical nouns at one end of a continuum andanother class of prototypical verbs at the other end of this continuum. Inaddition, there are two classes of property concept words within the continuumthat are realized as nominal adjectives and verbal adjectives. Situated in the rniddle of this continuum is a small group of words that showneither derivational nor inflectional categories.