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7.2 Predicative adjectives<br />
(9) fáhttsa<br />
fáhttsa<br />
lä<br />
lä<br />
mitten\nom.sg be\3sg.prs<br />
‘The mitten is black.’<br />
(10) fáhtsa<br />
fáhtsa<br />
lä<br />
lä<br />
mitten\nom.pl be\3pl.prs<br />
‘The mittens are black.’<br />
tjáhpat<br />
tjáhpat<br />
black\sg<br />
tjáhpada<br />
tjáhpad-a<br />
black-pl<br />
[pit090930a.062]e<br />
[pit090930a.063]e<br />
Morphologically, predicative adjectives are much like nouns because they inflect<br />
for number. In fact, many predicative adjectives inflect for number in ways<br />
that clearly align with the nom.sg∼nom.pl inflectional marking <strong>of</strong> certain noun<br />
classes. The case could be made that they also inflect for case, although they<br />
are always in nominative case (cf. §13.1.4 on copular clauses). However, because<br />
no paradigmatic opposition to other case forms exists for predicative adjectives<br />
(they are only attested in the corpus as a nominative complement to a copular<br />
clause), I conclude that they only inflect for number.<br />
Nonetheless, these are syntactically adjectives, as they head adjectival phrases<br />
and can be modified by adverbs <strong>of</strong> grade, such as nav ‘so’ as in (11).<br />
(11) buhtsu<br />
buhtsu<br />
lä nav buojde<br />
lä nav buojde<br />
reindeer\nom.pl be\3pl.prs so fat\pl<br />
‘The reindeer are so fat and beautiful.’<br />
ja tjábbe<br />
ja tjábbe<br />
and beautiful\pl<br />
[pit080703.014]<br />
Table 7.2 on the next page lists a number <strong>of</strong> attributive adjectives and the corresponding<br />
predicative adjectives; the latter clearly align with noun classes in their<br />
number marking. The table is divided into subgroups <strong>of</strong> word forms (indicated<br />
by small Roman numerals) that feature the same morphological relationship between<br />
attributive and predicative adjectives.<br />
As is evident from the examples in Table 7.2, the attributive forms and the<br />
predicative forms correspond in a variety <strong>of</strong> ways. These correspondence patterns<br />
(numbered i-vii) are described here:<br />
i<br />
ii<br />
The attributive form differs from the predicative form in the choice <strong>of</strong><br />
stem allomorph concerning V1, consonant center, V2 and the final consonant.<br />
Number marking like class IIIa nouns.<br />
The attributive form and the plural predicative form have the same V1<br />
and consonant center, as opposed to the singular predicative adjective;<br />
the attributive form has a stem final -s, while the predicative forms have<br />
an open final syllable. Number marking like class I nouns.<br />
131
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