Krishnamurti Bhadriraju. The Dravidian Languages

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8.2 Adjectives 391

(3)

∗

uH ‘yonder’ (see section 6.4.2.2) [557]

(4)

∗

yaH/

∗

y¯aH ‘which’ (see section 6.4.2.3) [5151]

The long-vowel forms

∗

¯a,

∗

¯ı occur in all subgroups as demonstrative adjectives.

Colour

(5)

∗

k¯ar/

∗

kar-V ‘black’. SD I: Ta. karu adj, kar, k¯ar-i, karu-mai ‘blackness’,

Ma. k¯ar, kari, karu ‘black’, Ko. k¯ar, kar,To.ka-, kax, kaxt,Ko

d. kari

‘black’, Ka. k¯ar, kare ‘blackness’, Tu. k¯ari, kariya ‘black’; SD II: T

k¯aru,

kari ‘black’, Go. k¯aryal, kari ‘black’; CD: Kol. k¯ari ‘black’, Nk. (Ch.)

karan/karen ‘black’, Pa. ker-/kerv- v.i. ‘burn’, Gad. karid v.i. ‘burn away

as rice’. Most languages also have verb forms based on

∗

kar-V- ‘to burn’

derived from the adjectival root [1278a, c].

(6a)

∗

kem- ‘red’. SD I: Ta. cem-, cey- c¯e- ‘red’, Ma. ce-, cem-, c¯eya,Ko.ken,

kep, k¯et,To.k¨o-/ke-,Ko

d. kem-, Ka. kem-, Tu kem-, ke˜nca ‘red’; SD II: Te.

cem- ‘red’ in cpds; CD: Pa. key ‘red’; ND: Ku

r. x

eso ‘red, blood’, Malt.

q¯eso,Br.x¯ıs-un [1931].

(6b) PSD

∗

et-V ‘red’: SD I Ta. er-u

z ‘a hill tree with red ﬂowers’; SD II: Te.

r(r)a/er(r)a-ni ‘red’, er-upu ‘redness’, Go. erra ‘red’ (lw < Te.), Ko

ra, era-ni ‘red’; CD: Kol. (Kinwa

t) ero

ri ‘red’ (?lw < Te.).

(7)

∗

pacc-/

∗

pac-V- ‘green, yello

’. SD I: Ta

pacu ‘green, yello

’, v.i. ‘be

green’, paccai ‘greenness, freshness’, Ma. pacu, pai, pai-m adj, Ko.

pac,To.poˇc ‘green’, Ko

d. pacce ‘green’, Ka. pacce, pasi, pasu ‘green-

ness’, Tu. pacca ‘green’; SD II: Te. pacca ‘green, yellow’, pacci ‘raw’,

pasi ‘young, tender’, pasupu ‘turmeric’, Go. pahna ‘green’, Ko

da pasi

‘green’, pasi

‘turmeric’, Pengo pazi ‘fresh’; CD: Kol. pasu

di ‘yellow’,

Nk. pasap ‘turmeric’, Pa. pay ‘green’, Gad. pay id. [3821].

(8)

∗

l /

∗

n ‘white’. SD I: Ta. ve

l ‘white, pure, shining’, ve

n-mai ‘whiteness’,

Ma. ve

li, ve

livu, ve

nmai ‘whiteness’, Ko. ve

l,To.p¨o



l ‘white’, Ko

d. bo

‘light’, bo

l¨ıt¨e ‘white’, Ka. be

l, be

la, be

l(u)pu ‘whiteness’, be

lagu n. ‘light,

lamp’, Tu. bo

l¨ı ‘white’; SD II: Te. vel˜ugu v.i. ‘shine’, vella ‘white’, Go.

rci ‘light’, Kui l¯ongi ‘white’, Kuvi, Pengo, Man

rinj- ‘be white’;

CD: Kol. velu

n. ‘light’ (lw < Te.), Pa. vil ‘white’, vil-i /vil-g ‘be white’,

Oll. viled ‘white’; ND: Ku

r. bill¯ı ‘light’, bilc- ‘v.i. ‘shine’, Malt. bilbilr-

‘shine’,?Br. t¯ub¯e ‘moon’ [5496a, b].

Position (direction)

(9)

∗

ten ‘southern’. SD I: Ta. ten ‘south, southern’, Ma. ten, Ka. te˙n-g¯ali ‘south

wind’, Ko

d. tekk¨ı, t¨ekk¨ı ‘south’, Tu. tenk¯ayi ‘?south, southern’; SD II:

392 Adjectives,

adverbs and

clitics

Te. temm-era (<

∗

temb-eral ‘south wind’) ‘southern breeze’,

ten-k¯ayi ‘co-

conut’ [3449].

(10)

∗

t-a ‘northern’. SD I: Ta. va

ta ‘northern’, va

takku ‘north’, Ma. va

ta,

takku ‘north, northern’, Ko

d. ba

dak¨ı ‘north’, Ka. ba

da, ba

dagu ‘north’,

Tu. ba

dak¯ayi ‘north, northern’; SD II: Te. va

daku ‘northern’ [5218].

(11)

∗

pin/

∗

pit- adj/adv/n ‘back, end in place or time, afterwards’. SD I: Ta.

n adj id., pinn-an ‘younger brother’, pinn-i ‘mother’s younger sister’,

n-ru v.i. ‘retreat’; Ma. pin ‘behind, after’, pinn¯e ‘after’, Ko. pin ‘again,

other’, To. p¨ın ‘afterwards’, Ka. pin, pim, him ‘behind’, pi˙n-gu ‘go back’,

pin-te ‘the back part’, pi

r-e ‘buttock’, pin-cu ‘be behind’, Tu. pira ‘be-

hind’, pirapa ‘back’; SD II: Te. pinn-i ‘mother’s younger sister’, pi

r(r)a

‘buttock’, pinna adj ‘younger in kinship’, Go. pirne ‘two days after tomor-

row’, Ko

da pina ‘young, small’, pi

ra ‘buttock’; CD: pena ‘in addition’,

Nk. (Ch.) pinne(n) ‘day after tomorrow’, Pa. pi

-ge id., Gad. pirral, piral

‘buttocks’; ND: Ku

r. pis¯a ‘afterwards’, pisn¯a ‘next year’, Malt. pisi ‘below’

[4205].

(12)

∗

mun adj ‘prior, before, front’. SD I: Ta. mun ‘front, previous’, mun-n¯a

‘yesterday’, mu

n-ai ‘war front’, Ma. mun,Ko.mun, mu-, To. mun, Ka.

mun ‘that which is before, preceding in space’, mundu ‘front’, mun-cu ‘go

before’, mon-ne ‘day before yesterday’, Tu. mun`e ‘point, end’; SD II: Te.

mun-i ‘ﬁrst, former, front’, munu-pu, munnu ‘olden times’, mon-a ‘war-

front, end’, mun-du ‘front’, monna ‘day before yesterday’, Go. monne id.,

munn¯e ‘before’, Kuvi munu ‘point of needle’; CD: Pa. muna vanda ‘fore-

ﬁnger’, mona ‘tip’, Gad. mu

gal ‘in front’; ND: mund ‘ﬁrst’, Malt. mundi

‘formerly’, Br. m¯on ‘front’ [5020 a, b].

Age

(13)

∗

z-a ‘old, used’ (mainly referring to objects). SD I: Ta. pa

za adj, pa

za-

mai ‘oldness’, Ma. pa

za adj, pa

zama n, Ko. pay-/pa- adj, To. p¯aw/p¯a- adj,

d. pa

le adj,

OKa.

za, pa

ze adj,

Tu.

par

, par

¨ı adj;

SD II: OTe.

a-,

ata (>Mdn Te. p¯ata) adj, Go. pa

rna,Ko

da pa

ray adj, Kui p

r¯a

di, Kuvi

pr¯a

i,Pe.p

r¯an, Man

da p

r¯an(ca) adj; ND: Ku

r pacc¯a ‘old’, Malt pace id.

[3999].

(14)

∗

puc-V/

∗

put-V- ‘new’. SD I: Ta. putu, put-iya ‘new’, putta-putiya ‘brand

new’, Ma. putu ‘new, fresh’, Ko. pud,To.puθ , puθn ‘new’, Ko

d. pud¨ıy¨e

‘new’ (masc), Ka. posa, hosa ‘new, fresh’, Tu. posa; SD II: Go. puhn¯a

‘new’, Ko

da p¯uni,Kuip¯uni ‘new, fresh’, Kuvi p¯un, pu

ni,Pe.p¯un, Man

p¯un; CD: Nk. (Ch.) puni,Pa.pun, Gad. punc; ND: Ku

r. pun¯a, Malt. pune,

Br. p¯us-kun [4275].

8.2 Adjectives 393

It is clear that in South Dravidian II

∗

c > t in all except in Kanna

da and Tu

lu; in South

Dravidian II, Central Dravidian and North Dravidian the root-ﬁnal

∗

-c became -s >-h >

-Ø with the compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel, followed by an adjectival

sufﬁx -(V)n; note particularly Go -h, Kuvi -

and Br. -s [4275]. South Dravidian II,

Central Dravidian and Ku

rux–Malto require a reconstruction involving the addition of

an adjectival sufﬁx -ani to the root

∗

puy- <

∗

puc-.

(15)

∗

mutt-/

∗

mut-V ‘old, ancient’. SD I: Ta. mutu adj ‘old’, mutu-mai ‘anti-

quity’, mutt-eyil ‘ancient fortress’, Ma. mutu ‘old, prior, ripe’, Ko. mud,

To. muθ , muθ y ‘old’, Ko

d. mudi adj ‘old’, Ka. muttu, mudi ‘old age’, Tu.

mudi, mudu adj; SD II: Te. mudi adj, Go. muy-tor, mudi-yal ‘old man’;

CD: Nk. mudgan ‘husband’, Pa. Gad. mutt-ak ‘old man’. ND: Br. mutkun

‘old’ [4954].

(16)

∗

k¯o

∗

z-V ‘new, young, tender’. SD I: Ta. ku

za adj ‘young’, ko

zu-mai

‘freshness, beauty’, Ka. ko

da ‘tender age’, Tu. kor´e ‘weak, small’; SD II:

OTe. kro-, krotta ‘new’, Mdn Te. kotta, Go. ko

rs- ‘to sprout’, Kui ko

rgi

‘newly sprouted, green’, Kuvi k

r¯ogi ‘young’, Pe. k

rogi ‘fresh, new (of

leaves)’, Man

da k

rugi id.; CD: Pa. ko

r ‘very young’, ko

rc- ‘to sprout’, Gad.

‘young shoot’; ND: Ku

r. x¯or- ‘to shoot out new leaves’, Malt. q¯oroce

‘to sprout’, Br. xarring ‘to sprout’. Words meaning ‘young man/woman,

son/daughter-in-law, husband’, etc. are derived in South Dravidian from

this adjective in several languages [2149].

(17)

∗

l-V ‘young, tender’. SDI:Ta.i

la, i

lai ‘young, tender’, i

lai ‘youth’, Ma.

la adj, Ko. e

l,To.e

l,Ko

dagu ¨e

le¨e n ‘youth’, Ka. e

l, e

la, e

le ‘tenderness,

youth’, e

ladu ‘that is tender’, Tu. e

lat¨ı, e

le adj, latt¨ı id. (dial); SD II: Te. l¯e-,

eta ‘young’, tender’, Go. raiy¯o/leyor n. ‘adult boy’, raiy¯a/ley¯a n. ‘young

girl’, Kui l¯avenju ‘grownup boy’, l¯a

a ‘grownup girl’, Kuvi r¯a

a/l¯a

‘young woman, virgin’; CD: Kol. Nk. l¯e

ga ‘calf ’, Pa. iled ‘young man’,

ile ‘young woman’, Oll. ilen

d ‘bridegroom’, ile ‘bride’, iled ‘grownup girl’;

ND: ? Br. ¯ılum ‘brother’, ¯ı

r ‘sister’ [513].

Dimension (shape and size)

(18)

∗

p¯er/per-V ‘big’. SD I: Ta. p¯er, per-u, per-um, per-iya adj ‘great, large,

big’, peru-mai n ‘bigness’, Ma. p¯er, per-u, per-iya ‘great, large’, Ko. pe-

‘big’, To. pe- adj, Ko

d. per¨ı, per¨ı-m adj, Ka. p¯er, per adj/n, per-me n

‘increase’, Tu. per-i, per-iya adj; SD II: Te. p¯er-, pedda-(<

∗

per-da-)

adj, p¯er-mi n ‘greatness’, Go. per-m¯a, ber-iya adj ‘great’, Ko

da peri, per

adj, piri- ‘to grow’, Kui p¯er-(e

ri) ‘a large (rat)’, pr¯e-n

da ‘father’s elder

brother’, Kuvi bir- v.i. ‘grow’, Man

da p¯e-mba ‘father’s elder brother’;

CD: Kol. pera-, per ‘big’, Nk. (Ch.) phar ‘big, elder’, Pa. berto ‘big’,

394 Adjectives,

adverbs and

clitics

per- ‘big’, peru ‘much’, Oll. per-/ber- ‘big’, ber-pul ‘tiger’, Gad. ber-bull¯u

id.; ND: Br. pir-ing ‘to swell’ [4411].

(19)

∗

k¯ıt-/

∗

kit-V ‘small’. SD I: Ta. c¯ır-/ciru, cirru ‘small’, Ma. cirru,Ko.kir,

To. k¨ı

r,Ko

d. k¨ırke, Ka. kiri/u,Tu.kigga; SD II: Te. ciru, Go. ki

rk-‘very

thin’; CD: Kol. Nk. ?k¯ıke ‘boy’ [1594].

(20)

∗

kut-V ‘short’. SD I: Ta. kuru, kurr-uyir ‘half-dead’, Ma. kuru,Ko.kurg-

‘become small’, To. ku

rx- id., Ka. kuru,Tu.kuru; SD II: Te. kuru-, kuruca-

‘short, dwarﬁsh’, Go. kurr¯a,Ko

da ku

ri, Pengo guhu, guspa ‘short’

[1851].

Physical property (including sensations involving the eyes/tongue/skin etc.)

(21)

∗

in- adj/n ‘sweet’. SD I: Ta. in- adj/n, in-pu/in-p-am ‘sweetness, delight’,

n-i ‘be sweet’, Ma. iniya ‘sweet’, ini-tu ‘a sweet thing’, Ka. in, im-pu,

im-bu ‘sweetness’, Tu. im-pu ‘agreeableness’; SD II: Te. in-cu ‘be agree-

able’, im-pu, im-mu (<

∗

im-bu; note the underlying root

∗

in is an adjective)

‘pleasantness’; ND: Ku

r. emb¯a ‘pleasant to taste’, Malt. embe ‘sweet’, Br.

han-¯en ‘sweet’ [530a, b].

(22)

∗

l- adj ‘sour’. SD I: Ta. pu-

l-i ‘turn sour’, pu

l-i-ccal ‘acidity’, pu

l-i-

ppu ‘sourness’, Ma. pu

l-i ‘sourness’, v ‘turn sour’, Ko. pu

ly adj ‘sour’,

p¨u

ly,K

d. pu

l-i adj,

Ka.

l-i/-u n ‘sour

ness

’, pu

n-ise ‘tamarind’, T

l-i-(pu) ‘acidity’, pu

n-i-k`e ‘tamarind’; SD II: Te. pul-i, pulla-(ni) ‘sour’,

pul-u-pu ‘sourness’, pul-iyu v.i. ‘turn sour’, Go. pulla, pu

la ‘sour’, Ko

pula ‘sour soup’, Kuvi pulla adj; CD: Kol. pulle adj, Pa. pul, pul-di, pull-a

adj, Gad. pull¯a ‘sour’ [4322].

(23)

∗

wal ‘strong’,

∗

wal-a kay ‘right hand’. SD I: Ta. val adj ‘strong’, vall-ai

‘strength’, vallu ‘be able’, vala-kkai ‘right hand’; Ma. val, valu, valiya adj,

vallu-ka v.i., Ko. val,To.pa

s,Ko

d. bala ‘power, strength’, Ka. bal, bali

vb ‘grow strong’, bala key ‘right hand’, Tu. balu ‘great’; SD II: Te. vali

‘big, large’, vala

ti ‘competent person’, vala- ‘right’ (<‘strong’), Go. wall¯e

‘much, very’; CD: Pa. vela key ‘right hand’, Gad. valan ‘thick, stout’; ND:

Malto balehne ‘large’, Br. balun ‘big, large, elder’ [5276].

(24)

∗

n adj ‘cool, cold’. SD I: Ta. ta

n adj. ta

n¯ır ‘cold water’, ta

n-am, ta

pu ‘coldness’, Ma. ta

n adj, ta

n-u-ppu n ‘coldness’, ta

n-ikka v.i. ‘cool’, Ko.

n¯ır ‘cold water’, To. to(

n)- adj ‘cool’, Ko

d. ta

n-i v.i., ta

n-¨ı, ta

n-¨ıp¨ı ‘cool-

ness’, Ka. ta

n adj/n, ta

n-asu n ‘coldness’, Tu. ta

nu adj/n ‘coolness, cold’,

ni adj; SD II: Te. tan-iyu ‘be satisﬁed’, ?ta

di ‘wet’, Go. da

g- ‘be cold’;

ND: Ku

r. cai

-n¯a ‘get wet’.||> Pkt. ta

n¯aya ‘damp’,

∗

tha

d¯a- ‘cold’

are considered early borrowings from Dravidian. CDIAL 13676(2) [3045].

8.2 Adjectives 395

Value

(25) PSD

∗

nal ‘good, beautiful’. SD I: Ta. nal, nalla adj, nal-am n ‘goodness’,

nalku ‘to rejoice’, Ma. nal adj, nalam ‘goodness’, Ko. nal- adj, To. na

sθ ‘beauty’, Ko

d. nall¨e adj, Ka. nal ‘goodness’, Tu. nali, nal¨ı ‘good,

cheap’; SD II: Te. naluwu ‘beauty’, Go. (M) nel¯a ‘good’ [3610].

Numerals As mentioned in section 6.5, cardinals of ‘one’ to ‘ﬁve’ and ‘eight’ to ‘ten’

are morphological complexes involving an adjectival root and a marker of a neuter

gender represented b

∗

-tu/

∗

-ku. In the following I am

citing the adjectival part

with

cross-references to fuller etymologies in section 6.5.

(26)

∗

¯or/

∗

or-V ‘one’ (see section 6.5.1 (b)) [990a].

(27)

∗

¯ır/ir-V ‘two’ (see section 6.5.2) [474].

(28)

∗

muH- ‘three’ (see section 6.5.3) [5052].

(29)

∗

n¯al/

∗

nal-V- ‘four’ (see section 6.5.4) [3655].

(30)

∗

cay-m- ‘ﬁve’ (see section 6.5.5) [2826].

(31)

∗

n- ‘eight’ (see

section 6.5.8) [783].

(32)

∗

l-/

∗

n- ‘nine’ (see section 6.5.9) [3532].

(33)

∗

paH- ‘ten’(see section 6.5.10) [3918].

The foregoing list covers most of the basic adjectives that are reconstructible for Proto-

Dravidian or for one of the subgroups.

Note that among the descriptive adjectives South Dravidian I and South Dravidian

II have cognates in all cases; Central Dravidian has no cognates for as many as eight

adjecti

ves, namely two denoting

‘position’ (9),

(10), one

‘age’ (13),

two

‘dimension’

(19), (20), two ‘physical property’ (21), (24), and one ‘value’ (25). North Dravidian also

has no cognates for eight adjectives: (5) (7) representing ‘colour’, (9), (10) ‘position’,

(19), (20) ‘dimension’, (22) ‘physical property’ and (25) ‘value’. This provides additional

support to the subgrouping adopted here.

8.2.2 Basic and derived adjectives in modern languages

South Dravidian I

In Classical Tamil many basic adjectives occur as noun modi

ﬁers

without any change

or sufﬁxation, e.g. tol

ti ‘established clan’, karum pukai ‘black smoke’, ve

l aruvi

‘white

waterfall’, irum kuyil ‘dark cuckoo’, va

ta malai ‘northern mountain’, m¯u eyil

‘three

fortresses’, perum kal ‘big rock’, ciru m¯ın ‘small ﬁsh’, mutu cuvar ‘old wall’,

k¯alai ‘pleasant morning’, etc. Nearly ﬁfty such basic adjectives have been cited

by Rajam (1992: 434–42), including deictic and some numeral bases, but excluding

Adjectives in the examples and their glosses are underlined where necessary.

396 Adjectives,

adverbs and

clitics

verbal participles for Classical Tamil. The adjectives, like nouns, could also be used

predicatively in Old Tamil, e.g. nall¯or

y¯arkol

‘who are

(these) good people

?’ iru-v-¯am

taiy¯e ‘between the two of us’ etc.

In Modern Tamil there are some high frequency adjectives that cannot be derived

from noun or verb roots, e.g. nalla ‘good’, periya ‘big’, cinna ‘small’, putu ‘new’,

zaya ‘old’; also a few basic colour terms are derived from adjectival roots, namely

karuppu ‘black’, cevappu ‘red’, ve

la ‘white’, pacce ‘green’ (Asher 1985: 186–7). Two

adjectivalizing

suf

ﬁxes -¯a

na ‘that which is/was’ (historically the past relative participle

of ¯aku ‘become’) and -u

la ‘that which has’ (the relative participle of the verb

∗

l ‘be,

exist’) are added to nouns to derive adjectives in reduced relative clauses, e.g. a

zaku

‘beauty’: a

zak-¯a

na ‘beautiful’, ganam-u

n¯a

‘thick

mirror

’ (lit. w

eight-having

glass). When the basic adjectives are used predicatively, (pro)nominalizing sufﬁxes -atu/

-cu (3n sg) or -avan/-ava

l/-avar (3m sg, f sg, h pl), etc. are added, e.g. avan

v¯ı

peri-cu

cinn-atu

‘his

house

(is) big

/small

’, avan periy-avan ‘he is a big man’ (see section

9.2.4).

2. In Malay¯a

lam ‘inherent adjectives’, most of which carry the adjectivalizing suf-

ﬁx -ya/-iya include nalla ‘good’, ce

r-iya ‘small’, val-iya ‘big’, per-iya ‘big’, kur-

iya ‘short’, put-iya ‘new’, pa

za-ya ‘old’, e

l-iya ‘humble’, i

la-ya ‘young’ (Asher and

Kumari 1997: 349–60). Abstract nouns, and other nouns both uninﬂected and inﬂected,

add -¯aya and -u

la (relative participles of ¯akuka ‘become’ and u

‘to exist,

have

’, re-

spectively), prasiddham (< Skt.) ‘famous’: prasiddham-¯aya

cikilsa

‘famous

(medi-

cal) treatment

’, mi

tukk

‘cleverness’: mi

tukk-u

‘child

who has cleve

rness

’

(a clever boy), k¯a

t-il u

mara

ŋŋ

‘trees

in the forest

’. These can be treated as

reduced relative clauses (see section 9.3.2).

When adjectives are used predicatively,

they are nominalized by the addition of appropriate gnp sufﬁxes (see section 6.7), e.g.

nalla-van

¯a

‘the boy

good (one)

’.

Although the available grammars do not include demonstrative–interrogative and

numeral roots under basic adjectives, they are used as such in both Tamil and Malay¯a

lam.

3. Basic adjectives in Old Kanna

da consist of: (a) demonstrative and interrogative

roots ¯a ‘that’, ¯ı ‘this’ and ¯ava ‘which?’ (b) about forty-seven qualitative

adjectives, e.g.

l ∼ o

l ‘good’: o

l-nu

di ‘good word’, o

l-¯ane ‘good elephant’, ta

n ∼ ta

n- ‘cool’: ta

zil ‘cool grove’, ta

n-elar ‘cool breeze’ etc., and (c) nine numeral adjectives, e.g.

or ∼ ¯or ‘one’: or-v¯agam ‘one part’, ¯or-a

di ‘one foot’, ay ‘ﬁve’: ay-n¯u

ru ‘ﬁve hundred’.

Most of these are traceable to Proto-Dravidian sources.

Several subclasses have been identiﬁed among the derived adjectives: (a) Adj + ya →

Adj, e.g. ini-ya ‘sweet’: ini-ya kavite ‘sweet poetry’; (b) N (body part, abstract noun) +

ili (‘not possessing that’) → n¯a

n ‘shame’: n¯a

n-ili ‘shameless’, pallu ‘tooth’: pall-ili

Thanks to Sanford B. Steever for suggesting this aspect of analysis.

8.2 Adjectives 397

‘toothless’; (c) a numeral + aneya → Ordinal, e.g. ¯a

ru ‘six’: ¯ar-aneya ‘sixth’; (d) bound

adjectives of the shape C

tta- preceding certain nouns of C

CV or C

CVC shape,

e.g. tudi ‘end’: tutta-tudi ‘the very end’, modal ‘ﬁrst’: motta-modal ‘the very ﬁrst’ etc.;

(e) bound adjectival roots which occur attributively to the following noun heads only in

compounds, e.g. na

t-iru

l ‘midnight’ (cf. na

du ‘middle’), pin-g¯o

l ‘the rear of army’ (cf.

pin-du ‘back side’, see PD

∗

pin section 8.2.1), k¯ı

z-il ‘lower house’ (ke

z-a-gu ‘below’,

Proto-Dravidian root

∗

k¯ı

z ‘below’; il ‘house’); (f) some nouns are used attributively to

the following noun head, e.g. alar-ambu ‘ﬂower arrow’ (alar ‘ﬂower’, ambu ‘arrow’)

in karmadh¯araya (Adj + N) compounds; (g) a noun is adjectivalized by the addition

of -ina/-

na/-da (genitive sufﬁxes) before other noun heads, e.g. mutt-ina

dige

‘an

ornament

of pearls

’(muttu ‘pearl’); (h) v

erbal adjectives or relativ

e participles formed

by addition of -a to tensed stems, e.g. n¯o- v.i. ‘be wounded’, past stem no-nd-, relative

participle no-nd-a : no-nd-a simga ‘a wounded lion’, non-past relative participle in

p¯a

duv-a

tumbi

‘a singing

bee

’, negative non-past relative participle in ariy-ad-a

vidde

‘unknown/unlearnt

skill

’ (Ramachandra Rao 1972: 160–8; the examples are

from a tenth-century literary work, Pampa Bh¯arata).

Modern Kanna

da has both attributive and predicative uses of adjectives, e.g. cikka

‘small’, do

da ‘big’, tu

ta ‘naughty’: cikka hu

duga ‘small boy’, tu

ta hu

duga ‘a naughty

boy’ (adjectival use); avanu cikk-avanu ‘he is a small man’, avaru tu

ta-ru ‘they are

naughty’ (predicative usage). Note that an adjective is nominalized when it occurs predi-

catively (Sridhar 1990: 248–50).

4. In Ko

dagu, the adjectives are treated as a subclass of nominals (Ebert 1996: 34–5).

Adjectives carry a sufﬁx -¨e/-iy¨e, e.g. cer-iy¨e ‘small’, nall-¨e ‘good’, per-iy¨e ‘older’, e

iy¨e ‘younger’. Adjectival use: nall-¨en¯ır¨ı ‘good water’. Predicative use: n¯ıru nall-ad¨ı

‘the water is good’. Balakrishnan (1977: 173–81) treats adjectives as a separate part

of speech. He gives many examples of basic and derived adjectives, e.g. arme ‘rare’,

ayn¨ı ‘true’, k¨ır¨ı ‘small’, per¨ı ‘big’, etc., beside deictic and interrogative roots ¯a/¯ı/¯e,

numeral adjectives like ¯or-¯a

d¨ı ‘one year’, bound ones in compounds like kem-ma

n¨ı

‘red soil’ (kem- ‘red’), are all treated under basic adjectives. Under derived he treats

several adjectivalizing sufﬁxes added to other adjectives, adverbs, nouns and verbs, e.g.

a-n¨e ‘that type of ’, ¨e

l-ey¨e ‘young’, akka-t¨e ‘of that time’, bala-t¨ı ‘right’, pa

d¯e-t¨e ‘old’,

relative participles like badd¨e

b¯ake

‘lived

life

’.

5. Emeneau’s Toda Grammar and Texts (1984: 109–14) has a small chapter on ad-

jectives. He says the adjectives do not take case sufﬁxes like nouns (110). Among the

subclasses, numeral adjectives like o

d ‘one’, demonstrative and interrogative roots like i

‘this’, a/ay ‘that, those’, ¯e/¯ey

‘which?’ are listed. Among descriptive adjectives, per/pe

‘big’, k¨ı

r ‘small’: k¨ırx¯ux ‘small girl’, kur ‘short’, kur monsn ‘small man’, p¨o



l ‘white’:

Note that the -y in two of these cases is the reﬂex of an older laryngeal

∗

398 Adjectives,

adverbs and

clitics

p¨o



l¨ır ‘white buffalo’, etc. In all, eighteen such adjectives used attributively have been

identiﬁed. These are all traceable to adjectival roots of Proto-Dravidian listed in section

8.2.1 above. An adjective may occur predicatively with a nominalizer sufﬁx, e.g. pul

poˇc¨ıyi

‘the grass

is green

’; attributive usage in poˇces ‘green leaves’, etc.

Data on Iru

la, Tu

lu and Koraga adjectives are not available from published sources.

Alu Ku

rumba data do not throw any new light on the problem of adjectives.

South Dravidian II

6. Telugu is said to have four subclasses of adjectives (Krishnamurti and Gwynn 1985:

116–28): (i) basic, (ii) derived, (iii) positional and (iv) bound. Basic adjectives, which

occur only as attributes to head nouns, consist of the demonstrative and interrogative

roots, ¯a ‘that’, ¯ı ‘this’, ¯e ‘what’, beside oka ‘one’, prati (< Skt.) ‘each’, ceri ‘each (of

two persons or things)’ used attributively before cardinals ‘one’ to ‘ten’, or rounded

numbers: ceri

m¯u

‘three

each

’, ceri

iraway

‘twenty

each

’; ara ‘half’ is more

frequently used as an adjective than as a noun.

Derived adjectives: (a) all nominals in genitive–oblique are used attributively to fol-

lowing noun heads, e.g. illu ‘house’, i

ti- gen:

ti kappu ‘roof of the house’, n¯enu ‘I’: n¯a

p¯eru ‘my name’, pa

d-lu ‘fruit’: pa

dl-a

ta ‘a basket of fruit’; (b) adjectives/nouns

denoting size/shape add -¯a

ti to make them attributes to noun heads, e.g. po

dugu adj/n

‘tall, tallness, length’: po

dug-¯a

ti ‘long’, l¯awu ‘stout, stoutness’: l¯aw-¯a

ti. ‘stout, fat’;

andam-ayna pilla ‘a beautiful girl’, teliwi ‘intelligence’: teliw-ayna mani

si ‘an intelli-

gent person’ etc. This sufﬁx can be added to those of (b) also or any other nominal to

convert it into an adjectival phrase; (d) attribute + head compounds are formed from a

closed set of neuter singular nouns ending in -m(u) by replacing it with -pu, e.g. gurram

‘horse’: gurra-pu ba

di ‘horse-drawn cart’, pallam ‘low land’: palla-pu n¯ela ‘low-lying

land/ir

rigated land

’; in

one case the

ﬁnal -mu is replaced

by -

pa, inumu ‘iron’ : ina-pa

d¯ı ‘an iron bar’;

(e) numerals take -¯o to make them ordinals, e.g. re

du ‘two’: re

d-¯o

‘second’; (f) a few nouns denoting measures add -e

du (Old Te. -˜e

du > Modern Te. -e

du)

to convert them into adjectives, m¯ura ‘cubit’: m¯ur-e

du ‘a cubit of ...’, c¯era ‘palm’;

c¯er-e

du ‘palmful’ etc.; (g) adverbs of manner derived from deictic and interrogative

bases add -

ti to derive adjectives, al¯a ‘that manner’: al¯a-

ti ‘such a’; the adverbs a

‘that side/way’, i

tu ‘this side/way’ and e

tu ‘which side/way’ add -wa

ti to form derived

adjectives, a

tuwa

ti (goppa) mani

si ‘that kind of (great) person’.

Positional adjectives are nouns in the nominative, which precede a head noun at-

tributively. These are used differently from the oblique–genitives. All cardinals (number

In Old Telugu two other words p¯amu ‘snake’ and n¯amu ‘stubble of millet left in the ﬁeld after

harvesting’ also had adjectival forms p

apa- and n

apa-, respectively (derived from

∗

p¯am-pp- and

∗

n¯am-pp-), e.g. p

apa-

r¯e

du ‘king of snakes’, n

apa-c¯enu ‘a ﬁeld with only stumps after harvesting’.

8.2 Adjectives 399

words) can occur as adjectives when they qualify a following noun, e.g. re

du pustak¯alu

‘two books’, iddaru manu

sulu ‘two persons’. Some of these are lexical compounds (spe-

ciﬁc + generic), e.g. cintace

tu ‘tamarind tree’, m¯ami

di-pa

du ‘mango fruit’, gul¯abi-

mogga ‘rose-bud’. There is a class of descriptive adjectives, which may also be used

as nouns, but they occur more frequently as adjectives, e.g. pedda ‘big’, cinna ‘young’

manci ‘good’, ce

da ‘bad’, ekkuwa ‘much’, takkuwa ‘little’, anta ‘that much’, inta ‘this

much’, enta ‘how much’. A preadjectival qualiﬁer is c¯al¯a ‘very’, c¯al¯a pedda ‘very big’;

words like ekkuwa ‘excess, much’ are used both attributively and predicatively with-

out change, e.g. w¯a

diki

ekkuwa

pani

cepp

‘(I) gave (told)

him

much

work

’

(adjectival use), w¯a

diki pani ekkuwa ayindi [he-to work excess become-past-3n sg] ‘his

work has become excessive’ (nominal use).

Bound adjectives are a class of stems of CVCCV or CVCVCV, which become ad-

jectival by the addition of -ni/-

ti, abstract nouns by the addition of -na, and adverbs

by the addition of -g¯a. These are mostly terms of colour, taste and density, e.g. tella-

‘white’: tella-

ti/tella-ni ‘white, whitish’, tella-na ‘whiteness’, tella-g¯a ‘being white’;

tella- is used in an idiomatic compound, e.g. tellaw¯a

du ‘whiteman’ vs. tella-

tiw¯a

du ‘a

fair-complexioned man’. Some of the other bound adjectival stems are nalla- ‘black’,

erra- ‘red’, pacca- ‘green-yellow’, tiyya- ‘sweet’, pulla- ‘sour’, metta- ‘soft’, nunna-

‘smooth’, sanna- ‘thin, ﬁne’, cakka- ‘nice’, palaca- ‘thin’, cikka- ‘thick’ etc.

Abstract nouns in ﬁnal -na and others, which do not necessarily belong to the above

set, occur predicatively in verbless sentences without the addition of pronominal sufﬁxes,

e.g. atanu c¯ala

dugu ‘he (is) quite tall’, ¯a cokk¯a telupu/tella-na ‘that shirt (is)

white

’,

¯awu p¯alu palaca-na

‘cow’s milk (is) thin’, n¯aku

¯ı¯uru

kotta

‘this town

(is) new

’; alternatively, with the copula, the adverbial form is used, e.g. atanu c¯ala po

dugu-g¯a

t¯a-

du [he much tall-being be-hab-3m sg] ‘he is quite tall’ etc. ‘Sentences of this type

are frequently used in a generic sense, i.e. when one speaks of qualities of objects as

habitual or timeless properties’ (Krishnamurti and Gwynn 1985: 126).

A restricted class of adjectives and nominals denoting ‘time’ and ‘place’ (syntacti-

cally adverbs) take a bound adjective of two syllables C

ta-, of which C

and V

are

the same as the ﬁrst CV of the qualiﬁed word, adding ‘intensity’ to the meaning of the

underlying form, e.g. ciwara ‘end’ : ci

a-ciwara ‘the very end’, modalu ‘beginning’:

a-modalu ‘the very/real beginning’, na

di (adj) ‘middle’; na

a-na

di ‘the exact mid-

dle’ etc. Note that these are not a productive type (new formations are not possible) and

there is only one word beginning with a vowel in this class.

Qualitative adjectives can be reduplicated to add extra emphasis to the head noun or

when a plurality of objects or persons are referred to, e.g. pedda pedda i

dlu ‘very big

houses’, goppa goppa-w¯a

lu ‘very very great persons’, cinna cinna r¯a

lu ‘very small

stones/pebbles’. The morphology of adjectives derived from verbs, i.e. relative partici-

ples, has been dealt with elsewhere (see sections 7.7.2, 7.8.1).

400 Adjectives,

adverbs and

clitics

7. In Gondi (Abhujma

ria dialect: Natarajan 1985: 145–52), demonstrative pronouns

are also used as adjectives, unlike in the other members of South Dravidian II, e.g. ad

n¯ar ‘that village’, aw n¯ahk ‘those villages’. While cardinals occur as attributes to non-

masculine nouns, a human classiﬁer is added to underlying roots, when human nouns

occur as heads, e.g. ren

d pill¯a

‘two girls’, but iru-wir p¯ek¯or ‘two boys’, hay-

l¯oh-k

‘ﬁve

houses’: ay-wir p¯ek¯or ‘ﬁve boys’. This feature of gender agreement between human

and non-human categories is also found in the other Dravidian languages and is not a

consequence of IA inﬂuence, cf. Te. re

d(u)

lu ‘two houses’, but iddaru pillau ‘two

children’.

Most of the descriptive adjectives are loanwords from Hindi or Marathi, e.g. cal¯ak

‘wise’, bariy¯a ‘big’; pun¯a ‘new’ is native. Derived adjectives add the genitive sufﬁx -t¯a

to nominal or adjectival stems, k¯as ‘hot’: k¯as-t¯a¯er ‘hot water’. Also adverbs and post-

positions can be adjectivalized by adding -t¯a, e.g. pirn¯e ‘last year’: pirn¯e-t¯a musur ‘last

year’s rain’, l¯op¯a ‘inside’: l¯op¯a-t¯a ‘the object inside’. There are nominal compounds, in

which the ﬁrst uninﬂected noun functions as an attribute, e.g. mark¯a mar¯a (cf. Ko

maRka maran) ‘mango tree’. Owing to the inﬂuence of Hindi, both borrowed and na-

tive adjectives agree with the following noun in gender and number, e.g. k¯ariy¯al

p¯ek¯al

‘black

boy’ (native): p¯andr¯ı ¯anc¯a

r ‘white woman’ (-¯al m sg and -¯ı f sg; gender agree-

ment),

deng¯a

mar¯a ‘tall tree’:

deng¯al m¯ank¯al ‘tall man’, pun¯a l¯on ‘new house’: pun¯a

l¯ohk ‘new houses’ (native; number agreement). This is a case of Hindi inﬂuence on

Gondi who are bilingual in their native language and a nearby dominant Hindi/Marathi

language.

8. Ko

da (Krishnamurti 1969a: 265–71) basic adjectives comprise (a) demonstrative

and interrogative bases such as aya ‘that’, y¯a ‘this’ and aye ‘what?’; (b) some twenty-

three descriptive adjectives, e.g. moga ‘male’, izri ‘small’, peri ‘big’, negi ‘good’, se

‘bad’, vaRi ‘mere’ etc.; (c) bound adjectives include (i) numeral adjectives of ‘one’ to

‘three’, or/oko ‘one’, ri ‘two’, mu ‘three’, as in or ne

d ‘one day’, ri ne

d ‘two days’,

mu ne

d ‘three days’ etc., and (ii) the ﬁrst members of certain ‘frozen’ compounds, e.g.

b¯anz raza ‘barren king’, sir naru

d) ‘frail human’ etc. Complex adjectives are derived

from other adjectives, nouns or verbs. Derived from other adjectives: (d) na-ni ‘that

sort of ’, na-so ‘that much’, ni-ni ‘this sort of’, ni-so ‘this much’, e-so ‘how much’ are

derived from bound allomorphs of demonstrative and interrogative roots, i.e. na-, ni-,

e-; (e) addition of the adjectival sufﬁx -ni or -ti/-di to descriptive adjectives, e.g.

∗

era-

‘red’: e

ra-ni ‘red’,

∗

ves-: ves-ni ‘hot’, etc. mis- ‘superior’: mis-ti ‘high’, vi

di ‘separate’:

di-di id.; (f) nominal stems in genitive–oblique formed by the addition of {-ti ∼ -di

∼ -Ri} or -i,-

ni, e.g. go

ro-ti

da d¯ewu

‘the Ko

da god

of the hills

’, van-i

soke

p¯ate

‘his

shirts

and dhoti

’, em(b)e-

ni ‘of which place’ (embe ‘where’),

k¯alk-a

muv-e

‘the bells

two

legs

’. In the case of personal pronouns,

possessive pronouns like n¯a ‘my’, n¯ı ‘your’ are used adjectivally: (g) a small class of