Noun Modification with -u
Adjective suffix -u
All verbs, some nouns, and all stative verbs that are more prototypically attribute-denoting can become ‘adjectives’ if the appropriate morphology is used. One way to adjectivize is by use of the suffix -u.
xaɓiy ofodaxu xaɓiy ofelu fodax ole 'sour fruit' ‘the delicious sour fruit’
-u suffixed ajectives can be strung together with no particular ordering constraints:
xaɓiy xapodaxu xapelu xe ajega xaɓiy xadaq xapodaxu xapelu ‘the sour delicious fruits’ ‘there are two sour delicious fruits’
jikam omaxanda seeru yaxgu jikam omaxanda yaxgu seeru ‘I bought an expensive red hat.’ ‘I bought a red expensive hat.’
In perfect or distant past tense, the -u suffix becomes a tense-carrying suffix and takes the regular pre-vocalic glottal stop that the perfect usually takes in verbal inflection:
fambe le amagin‘a fambe magin'u laa ‘the goat was big’ 'the was-big goat'
wiin amagin'a wiin magin ‘u waa 'the people were big' 'the were-big people'
The tense-carrying ability of -u comes across as well in ka-copula predication:
Variation in word boundary vowel-deletion
At the word boundary between an adjective and a determiner, vowel hiatus is usually avoided by the deletion of one or the other vowel. While the form containing both vowels is acceptable, it is not colloquially preferred. Between the adjectival vowel and the determiner vowel, the latter is preferred for deletion. Cases where the adjectival vowel is deleted do occur, but there are also cases where it is not acceptable to do so:
oɓiy ofodaxu ole xabii xapodaxu axe oɓiy ofelu ole wiin faax we oɓiy ofodaxu le xabii xapodaxu xe oɓiy ofelu le wiin faaxu we oɓiy ofodax ole ?xabii xapodax axe *oɓiy ofel ole *wiin faax owe 'the sour fruit' 'the sour fruits' 'the good fruit' 'the good people'
Go back to: Modification Strategies
Oana 03:27, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
