adjective
and a verb in its participial form can be constituents of a NP. There
is no fixed word-order between a qualitative adjective and the participial
form of a verb functioning as an adjective, i.e., either of them can be
pre-posed to the other, as in : |
ilimì nuyakew lakhì
|
`smiling dame’ |
ana ak kew
|
`a weeping child’ |
asbo
icekewekew qhem  ay
|
`many
tall fallen trees’ etc. |
kutomo
~ as bo
qhemay
ice- |
kewekew
kutomo |
|
|
In
short it may be stated that each of the sub-groups of the functional adjectives
has a counterpart in the adjectives proper. These are : |
|
(1) the noun/pronoun in the genitive with the colour adjectives. |
|
(2) the numerals with the quantitative adjectives, and |
|
(3) the participial form of a verb with the qualitative
adjectives. |
|
Having
discussed the adjectives and their sub-grouping in sema, a brief discussion
of the degrees of comparison in Sema follows. |
| 3.4.1.2.
Degrees of comparison |
Like
most fo the other known languages, there are devices in sema also to compare
certain specified quality of an item with those of others. There are two
degrees of comparison, viz., comparative and superlative degrees. The
comparitive is used for a comparison between two items/persons or two
sets of items/persons while the superlative is required when one item/person
is compared with the rest. |
| The comparative
degree |
| The comparative
degree is obtained in Sema by |
| (1) the particle
of comparison nuno `than’ post-posed to the item compared to |
| (2) the item
compared taking the focus marker and |
| (3) the quality
used for comparison (i.e., the adjective) is norminalised by the adjective
concerned taking the nominalizing particle -ú, as in : |
| ekiliye
hatoli nuno azukiwiú |
`Ekili is more beautiful than Hatoli’. |
|
|
The
word order mentioned above is strictly observed when the item compared
refers to a human being. If the item compared refers to a non-human being,
the item compared to, along with the comparative particle can be pre-posed
to the item compared as in : |
| sunaye
candinuno |
 |
|
| |
amekusoú
|
`gold
is costlier than silver’ |
| candinuno
sunaye |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
| awiye
awonuno |
|
|
| |
amekusoú
|
`mithun
is costlier than pig’ etc. |
| awonuno
awiye |
|
|
|
| The superlative
degree |
| The superlative
degree is obtained by- |
| (1) the noun
compared taking the focus marker |
| (2) the nominalizing
particle ú suffixing to the intensifier and |
| (3) the combined
form is post-posed to the quality (adjective) compared, as in : |
| awiye
amekuso ktú
|
`mithun
is the costiliest animal’ |
| sunaye
amekuso ktú
|
`gold
is the costilest metal’ |
| ekiliye
azukiwi ktú
|
`Ekili
is the most beautiful girl’ |
|
|
Having
discussed the adjectives and their sub-groups, their use in the degrees
of comparison, a brief discussion of the incidence of the process of re-duplication
with the adjectives follows : |
| 3.4.1.3. Reduplication |
The
morphological process of reduplication is made use of in Sema extensively
to give effect to enlargement of the concept, distributive function, emphasis,
etc. It occurs with different grammatical classes. In all instances the
last syllable of the word is repeated. To some degree, the qualitative
adjectives are also reduplicated, as in : |
| kize
`big’ |
Kizeze
`big-big’ (i.e. big enough for the particular
purpose) |
| hipaqóye
anipa kizeze |
`these
are large leaves’ |
|
|
| Which is in distinct
from : |
| hipaqóye
anipa ymono
kize |
`these
are very large leaves’ |
|
|
There
is a slight semantic difference in between the two sentences, i.e., whereas
the second sentence indicates the size in absolute or universal terms,
the first one indicates only in comparative terms, viz., the leaves are
just big enough for the particular purpose. |
