Syntactic aspects of adjectives in Uaçá Kheuól

Abstract

This article aims to present aspects of the syntactic distribution of the lexical category of adjectives in Kheuól do Uaçá, an indigenous language spoken by the Karipuna and Galibi-Marworno peoples on the Franco-Brazilian border in the municipality of Oiapoque, Amapá, Brazil. To establish the contrast with other lexical categories, we observed the behavior of adjectives in relation to their order of occurrence and in comparative constructions. In Kheuól, only adjectives can precede nouns in determiner phrases headed by the indefinite un 'a', verbs and participles cannot. Only verbs can be followed by plis ki 'more than' in comparatives, adjectives and participles must be preceded by pi 'more'. Although participles occur as the complement of pi (as adjectives), they cannot precede nouns in phrases headed by the indefinite un 'a' (adjectives may). We interpret, structurally, participles as deverbal adjectives. We use the term 'participle’ only as a descriptive label. We aim with this inaugural work to provide a preliminary contribution to the understanding of the defining syntactic properties of the lexical category of adjectives.