Adjectives and qualitative verbs in Akebu

Abstract

Akebu (< Kebu-Animere < Left Bank < Kwa < Niger-Congo) has a closed class of adjectives which consists of about 30 lexemes, most of which are lexically reduplicated. Adjectives can be used both as modifiers and as copula’s complements. Adjectives in Akebu have cross-linguistically rare morphosyntactic features. Firstly, when an adjective modifies the head noun in an NP it is incorporated between the noun stem and the suffixal noun class marker. Secondly, the copula used with adjectives differs from the one occurring with nouns and locative prepositional phrases in predicative position. Most adjectives are nominalized by conversion, but some adjectives derive nouns by full reduplication. In Akebu, a large number of lexemes with prototypically adjectival meanings are qualitative verbs. There is no evident semantic distribution between adjectives and verbs. At the same time, verbs share some morphosyntactic properties with true adjectives: like adjectives, they are incorporated between the noun stem and the suffixal noun class markers when used as nominal modifiers; like adjectives, they can be nominalized by means of reduplication. The resulting noun designates the subject of the action/ state if the verb is intransitive and the object if the verb is transitive. These nouns can occur in periphrastic superlative constructions similarly to nouns derived from true adjectives.