Article published in:
The Lexicon–Syntax Interface: Perspectives from South Asian languages
Edited by Pritha Chandra and Richa Srishti
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 209] 2014
► pp. 25–52

Property concepts and the apparent lack of adjectives in Dravidian

| University of Southern California
Dravidian lacks an adjective category lexically and neither does it derive one in the syntax. The primary data comes from Malayalam where unlike what previous accounts suggest (Bhat 1994; Amritavalli & Jayaseelan 2003; Jayaseelan 2007), the lexicon comprises of uninflected primitive roots (Marantz 1997; Borer 2003). These roots are property concept roots and they combine with null verbal and nominal heads to derive structures. The syntax derives structures, which in English-type languages would be expressed with an adjective. Relativization and nominalization are the two routes to arrive at meanings expressed by adjectives in other languages.
Keywords: adjective, Dravidian, feature sharing, nominalization, relativization
Published online: 25 March 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.209.02men
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