Adnominal adjective agreement (Surgut Khanty)

NoAgr: At least one of the features of class (gender), number, and case exists in the language, but adnominal (attributive) constructions do not show agreement for any features between nouns and adjectives.


(1a) ənəʌ qɔ̄t

big house

‘big house’


(1b) ənəʌ qɔ̄t-nə

big house-loc

‘in the big house’


(1c) ənəʌ qɔ̄t-ət-nə

big house-pl-loc

‘in the big houses’


(1d) ənəʌ qɔ̄t-ʌ-am-nə

big house-pl-1sg-loc

‘in my big houses’


(2a) tēm qɔ̄t

det house

‘this house’


(2b) tēm qɔ̄t-nə

det house-loc

‘in this house’


(2c) tēm qɔ̄t-ət-nə

det house-pl-loc

‘in these houses’


(2d) tēm qɔ̄t-ʌ-am-nə

det house-pl-1sg-loc

‘in these houses of mine’


(3) wät qɔ̄t-nə

five house-loc

‘in five houses’


In Surgut Khanty, noun phrase modifiers do not agree with their head, neither in number nor in case. Adjectival adjuncts (1a, b, c, d), determiners (2a, b, c, d) and numeral adjuncts are all used without suffixes.

Author: 

Márta Csepregi