Pernilla Hallonsten Halling

úkwú ‘large’ ńta` ‘small’ dimension
ó¸hú¸’rú¸ ‘new’ ócyè ‘old’ age
ó¸ma´ ‘good’ ó¸jó¸’ó¸ bad’ value

ójí’í ‘black, dark’ ó¸ca´ ‘white, light’ color

⁷ Dixon (2004: 5) includes six additional semantic types “associated with large adjective classes in some

languages”: difficulty, similarity, qualification, quantification, position, and cardinal
numbers. These types will not be discussed any further here.

Although it is by no means the standard for languages to have as perfect a pattern of semantic types of adjectives as Igbo, it is interesting to see that such neat cases do exist. Based on the results of adjectives patterning with these semantic classes cross- linguistically, a number of implicational tendencies are proposed. One of these generaliza- tions concerns adverbs and the semantic type speed, which is found among the peripheral types in (2.15).

speed terms tend to be in the adjective class if physical property terms are in this class, and in the adverb class if physical property terms are in the verb class. (Dixon 2004: 4)

In Dixon’s framework, speed is thus a potential type not only for adjectives, but also

for adverbs. Dixon also pays close attention to speed items in individual languages and notes when they belong to a category other than adjective, even though such findings are not discussed any further (apart from the implicational tendency above). As we shall see in chapter 8, speed plays a very central role for adverbs: one of the major findings of this thesis is that adverbs too have core and peripheral semantic types, and that speed is a core type for adverbs. Another type whose peculiarities Dixon (1982 [1977]) discusses is value.

A value adjective qualifies not the head noun, but some other adjective,

which is taken out of its normal place in the ordering and placed immediately after the value adjective. Thus a good new fast car is a fast car which is new and therefore good; a good fast new car is a new car which is fast and in virtue of this good... (Dixon 1982 [1977]: 25)

In an example such as a good box, where a value adjective is the only adjective, the

meaning is unclear. It does not refer to an object which is good based on the fact that it is a box, as pointed out by Dixon (1982 [1977]: 26). Instead, there is some implicit property that is interpreted from context, by which the box is judged to be good. It appears that to resolve the meaning of value words, other concepts are necessary, provided by linguistic or extra-linguistic context. In fact, speed is similar, although this is not discussed by Dixon. An example like a fast car can easily be correctly interpreted since a car is an object that is defined (partly) by its ability to move. On the other hand, a fast person does not have a straightforward interpretation. It probably refers to a person who moves or perhaps even runs fast (though in the latter case, it would be more natural to use a fast runner ), but exactly what action is performed fast by the person is unclear. These peculiarities of value and speed are noted on several levels, though they are not further treated by Dixon.
Dixon (2004) points to the two roles of adjectives, traditionally referred to as the at- tributive and predicative functions. An attributive adjectives is “a specification that helps focus on the referent of the head noun in an NP that relates to a predicate argument” (2004: 10). A predicative adjective is argued to be “a statement that something has a certain property” (2004: 10). The latter is stated to occur in the form of two syntactic strategies: intransitive predicates or copula complements. Most adjective classes across languages have both attributive and predicative functions according to Dixon, although

some languages may have only attributive adjectives, and others might have only predica- tive adjectives (2004: 10). While Dixon (1982 [1977]) argues that not all languages have an adjective class, Dixon (2004) takes the stance that an adjective class can be distin- guished in every language, provided that all grammatical criteria are taken into account. This naturally depends on what means are used to identify parts of speech, and will be further discussed in chapter 9.

The impact of Dixon’s semantic classes for adjectives is evident in the field of typology as well as in other areas of linguistics. As we will see in the chapters that follow, Dixon’s notes on the characteristics of value and speed are closely related to the discussion of adverbs. The small adjective classes attested in many languages in Dixon (1982 [1977]) are also highly important for the present discussion. In conclusion, although many impor- tant discussions have followed since, Dixon (1982 [1977]) still stands as a comprehensive introduction to adjectives from a typological perspective. Moreover, it can be used as a model for how to treat adverbs (see chapter 8).

2.