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7.2 Predicative adjectives<br />
v<br />
vi<br />
vii<br />
The bare stem in the singular predicative form, an additional final -is<br />
for the attributive form and -a for the plural predicative form. Number<br />
marking like class IIIa nouns.<br />
The singular and plural predicative forms differ only in the choice <strong>of</strong><br />
stem allomorph (in the consonant center), while the attributive form is<br />
in the ‘weak’ grade (like predicative plural) but with a stem-final gis.<br />
Only one example in the corpus; number marking like a class Ie noun.<br />
The predicative forms have a stem-final -t or -s, which is lacking in the<br />
attributive form. The plural predicative form is marked with a final -a.<br />
In the case <strong>of</strong> galbma, the attributive form and plural predicative form<br />
have the ‘strong’ stem form, as opposed to the singular predicative form,<br />
which is ‘weak’. Number marking like class IIIa nouns.<br />
Despite the similarities with nouns described above, it is important to point out<br />
that there are a number <strong>of</strong> predicative adjectives which do not inflect for number.<br />
Moreover, this lack <strong>of</strong> number marking cannot be assigned to any specific noun<br />
class, particularly since noun classes with similar segmental structures exhibit<br />
clear number marking strategies. Examples <strong>of</strong> such predicative adjectives are<br />
presented in Table 7.5 on the following page.<br />
The paradigms in Table 7.5 are divided into two sub-groupings, again based on<br />
the relationship between the attributive form and the predicative forms. They<br />
are summarized here:<br />
viii The attributive form ends in -a, while the predicative form ends in -e. 3<br />
ix All forms are syncretic. The first two examples have a closed final syllable,<br />
while the last three examples have an open final syllable.<br />
The variety evident in morphological correlations between the attributive and<br />
the predicative forms indicates that there is no regular form-to-function relationship<br />
between the attributive and predicative forms. Therefore, on formal grounds,<br />
the attributive and predicative forms <strong>of</strong> these property words are assigned to different,<br />
though formally and semantically related, adjectival lexemes, as argued<br />
for in the following section (§7.3).<br />
3 Cf. §7.6 for more details on unna/unna and smáve/smáve, the words for ‘small’.<br />
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