Adjectives as nouns (Surgut Khanty)

AdjNotNMorph: Attributive adjectives are distinct from nouns in their morphological  behavior; while nouns show inflection for categories such as number, case, and gender, attributive adjectives do not.


(1a) ənəʌ qɔ̄t

big house

’big house’


(1b) ənəʌ qɔ̄t-nə

big house-loc

’in a big house’


(1c) ənəʌ qɔ̄t-ət-nə

big house-pl-loc

’in big houses’


(1d) ənəʌ qɔ̄t-ʌ-am-nə

big house-pl-1sg-loc

’in my big houses’


In attributive adjectival constructions, adjectives are in their base forms. They cannot take the affixes of their noun heads (e.g. number or case markers, or affixes indicating the number of the possessed or the person of the possessor).

Author: 

Márta Csepregi