3. khri ‘be sour’         hayi ka-khri ‘sour ricebeer’       4.  ci ‘be wet’         osa ka-ci ‘wet clothes’       5.  ka ‘be broad’         lova ka-ka ‘broad road’       6.  pa ‘be brown’         raho ka-pa ‘brown bird’       7.  jü ‘be big’         ocü ka-jü ‘big house’         larübvü ka-jü ‘big book’               Sometimes, ka- functions  interchangeably with -koco as in 8 below :       8.  zhü ‘be good’         pfoo ka-zhü ‘good male/boy’         pfoo zhü-koco         9.  so  ‘be long’         oprü ko-so ‘long bridge’       10.  mo ‘be sweet’         rashü ko-mo  ‘sweet fruit’       11.  khro ‘be strong’         omüi ko-khro ‘strong man’       12.  lü ‘be hot’         koto ko-lü ‘hot food’       13.  kru ‘be old (as of inanimates)’         larübvü ko-kru ‘old books’       14.  ho ‘be deep’         korü ko-ho ‘deep river’       15.  do ‘be far’         obu ko-do ‘far off place’       16.  alü hro/hra ‘be weak’         pfoo alü ko-hro/ka-hra ‘weak male/boy’

A relevant question to address here is the treatment of the deverbal adjective as adjective, as a nonparticipial adjective rather than as a relative

participle, why, in other words, the prefixes ka/ko and a (and the suffix koco) should be treated as adjectivizers rather than as relative participializers. There are four formidable arguments against and two rather shallow ones for such a treatment : 1. a relative participle is sentential in origin and therefore displays sentential properties. Various case relations, which are sentential relations, characterise the relationship between the relative participle and the head noun (see 3.3.9.8) whereas these adjectives are predications of the nature of the referent of the head noun, and at best, this could be dubbed the (semantic) case of Object, which is the only case relationship that these adjectives may be said to enter into with their head nouns. This difference has to do with the second difference which is semantic. Further, the verb in the relative participle, unlike the adjective, behaves as though it is a verb in a sentence : it takes adverbs, while the adjective does not.

571 1.  oshu so-o1 shüpüi-o ko-bu2 kolamüi3     (the) plainsman3 who is speaking2 slowly1         2.  ora ro-o1 ta-ko-o2 dukamüi 3     (the) shopkeeper 3 who went away2 angrily1         3.  idu1 vu-ko-o2 a3 pfo4     my3 father4 who came2 yesterday1         4.  sodu1 v-ko-ru2 a3 kasao4     my3 friend4 who will come2 tomorrow1

The relative participle is tensed, the adjective is not :

realtive participle

572 1.  hihi1 a-no2 ka-pe3 iniu-na-sü4 -koe     this1 (is) the village4 that3 I1 mention/recently mentioned3     (present & immediate past tense)         2.  hihi1 a-no2 pe-ko-o3 iniu-na-sü4 -koe     this1 (is) the village4 that3 I2 mentioned/talked about3     (past tense)         3.  hihi1 a-no2 pe-ko-ru 3 iniu-na-sü4 -koe     this1 (is) the village4 that3 I2 will talk about3 (future tense)           adjective       573    nieo1 mamüi ka-zhü 2 beautiful2 female1 (tense less)

The relative participle could be marked for the progressive aspect, the adjective could not :