Nominal Modifiers

Adjectival modifiers agree with the nouns they modify in terms of the noun class determiner and the appropriate consonant mutation. This means that with diminutive and augmentative forms of nouns the noun class changes, and the adjective agreement follows on the basis of the new class. The following is a table sampling nouns across all noun classes and the ways in which they are modified, where the last two items on the list represent diminutive and augmentative noun classes.

x-w okiin opaax oxe ‘the good person’ wiin faax we ‘the good people’ x-w otew omosu oxe ‘the beautiful woman’ rew mosu we ‘the beautiful women’

l-k ading aciig ale ‘the tall fence’ ading aciig ake ‘the tall fences’ l-k leer leru le ‘the bright light’ leer leru ke ‘the bright lights’ l-k ruul magnu le ‘the big pig’ atuul amagnu xe ‘the big pigs’ l-k fambe leng le ‘the one goat’ pambe dik ke ‘the two goats’ l-k ojaf odum ole ‘the painful leg’ acaf adum ake ‘the painful legs’

n-k pis ñofu ne ‘the fast horse’ pis ñofu ke ‘the fast horses’ n-k diit leng ne ‘the one bird’ tiit dik ke ‘the two birds’

l-x obox ofuuxu le ‘the angry dog’ xa box xa puuxu xe ‘the angry dogs’ l-x onan ofarʄu le ‘the vicious rumor’ xanan xaparʄu xe ‘the vicious rumors’ l-x ofid oxoƈu ole ‘the thin butterfly’ xapid xaqoƈu axe ‘the thin butterflies’ l-x oʄoox omaak ole ‘the big bicep’ xaʄoox xamaak axe ‘the big biceps’

f-k faniik fambarʄu fe ‘the ugly elephant’ apaniik aparʄu (a)ke ‘the ugly elephants’ f-k ataaya fanaayu fe ‘the spicy tea’ ataaya anyaayu (a)ke ‘the spicy teas’

ng-n ondew onqoƈu onge ‘thin little woman’ fondew fonqoƈu ne ‘thin little women’ l-k gandew anqoƈu ale ‘thin big woman’ gandew anqoƈu ake ‘thin big women’