1

Chapter ##

ADJECTIVES

djectives comprise a relatively small lexical category in Bole. By definition,
adjectives predicate qualities to nominal referents, but there are other lexical
categories that serve this function as well, e.g. nouns expressing qualities,
such as ruække ‘thinness, skinniness’, and ideophonic adjectives (##), such as

njifiikir ‘tiny’. The main distinction between primary adjectives and other adjective-like
words is a cluster of syntactic properties not shared by any other category. (1) As
attributive modifiers, adjectives appear in the frame

NOUN

næ ____, e.g. o¥shô-n buæ&uæm

‘black goat’. (2)!Used without an overt nominal head to mean ‘the white one’, ‘the small
one’, etc. the empty nominal slot must be filled by næ that links

NOUN

+

ADJECTIVE

, e.g.

næ!fioæle ‘the small one’, mæ!pe¥tìlaæ ‘the white one’, also used to form ordinal numbers (##).
(3) As a clausal predicate, a simple adjective is juxtaposed to a subject noun phrase with
no overt copula, e.g. o¥shi buæ&uæm ‘the goat is black’. (4) Most primary adjectives can be
used nominally as the name of the property itself, e.g. wa\na\wo mana pe¥tìlaæ &yuwu\ dìfii
ka\ki ‘it has gotten me like whiteness has caught the neck of a pied crow’.

1. Primary Adjectives

We use the term “primary adjectives” for words that express adjectival concepts, have

the syntactic characteristics listed in the introductory paragraph above, and are not
obviously derived from a word of some other category.

1.1. Underived primary adjectives. The list of underived adjectives below is relatively
complete for currently available data.

Sem. cat.

Adjective

Plural

Meaning

Comment

Color

algaæji

‘green’

< Arabic

buæ&uæm

‘black’

∫u]l, ∫ul∫uæl

‘yellow’

< ideophone?

daæi

‘red; light complected’

lìpìla\}

‘blue’

< Kanuri

pe¥tìlaæ

‘white’

tutu\rì

‘greenish’

Dimension

du∫∫a

‘short; shallow’

< verbal noun?

fioæle

fiolleæ

‘small’

gaæraΩ

garreæ

‘tall, long, deep, far’

< ideophone?

A

2

nem

‘near’

< ideophone?

sêrì

asseæ

1

‘big; important’

Age

maænshuæ

‘old (inanimate thing)’

cf. maænshi ‘old
person’

po\yo

‘new’

Gender

gorzo

gora¥ji

‘male’

also ‘man’

moænduæ

mondeæ

‘female’

also ‘woman’

Appearance

goæΩ

goægine

‘good, nice, beautiful’

< ideophone?

nga\}

‘in good health’

< Kanuri

roæmoΩ

‘evil, bad, ugly’

< ideophone?

Taste, smell

∫eæneæm

‘sour, femented’

< ideophone?

daælìntaæ

‘sweet’

saæmpìnaæi

‘tasty, savory’

< ideophone

zoæi

‘pleasant, nice, tasty’

< ideophone?

Feel, texture

geæfieæu

‘hard, tough, dense’

cf. geæfieæu as
noun = ‘strength’

lì&y&yìu

‘slimy, slick’

< ideophone

ndaælaær

‘soft, fine’

< ideophone

njuæluær

‘cold’

< ideophone?

saælfiìnaæi

‘slick, slippery, glossy’

< ideophone

soækuæwum

‘light (in weight)’

< ideophone?

Evaluation

aæraæha

‘cheap’

< Hausa

kaæpu\ruæ

‘cheap’

< Kanuri?

pe\sìfieæ

‘useless’

< ideophone?

saraæi

‘worthless; free, gratis’

< ideophone?

Comparison

geæde

‘different’

< Kanuri; used
only as predicate
adjective

Several of these primary adjectives are borrowed words. Some adjectives, on the

basis of their form, are clearly of ideophonic origin (those notated “<!ideophone” with no
question mark). Those noted “<!ideophone?” all have the form CVC or CVCVC, i.e. one
or two syllables with a final consonant. There are underived common nouns with these
phonological shapes, but overwhelmingly, nouns end in vowels. On the other hand, CVC
and CVCVC are the two most common patterns for ideophones (##). Given the fuzzy
semantic boundary that separates ideophones and adjectives, it seems unlikely that the
concentration of CVC and CVCVC patterns among adjectives is accidental. In particular
the consonant -Ω in word final position is typical of phonaesthetic words but not of
substantives.

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Assè ‘big, important (pl.)’ is a suppletive plural for sêrì. Assè comes from a Bole-Tangale root *as- ‘old

(person)’, with a reflex in Karekare àsàu ‘old man’, plural asa\wuæn. The Bole singular may have a cognate
in Ngamo je¥roæ ‘old person’.

3

Some adjectives, particularly those expressing dimension, have plural forms.

Historically, the plurals for adjectives come from infixation of a root consonant, resulting
in either a geminate consonant or an infixed syllable -gi- (##).

1.2. Primary adjectives of the pattern kolloki. A group of primary adjectives have a
pattern that we represent schematically as kolloki, i.e. three syllables with a geminate
medial consonant and final syllable -ki. Tone patterns vary. All are in the “texture” or
“taste/smell” realms. There are enough adjectives of this pattern that their resemblance
seems not to be an accident, even though none of them are derivationally related in an
obvious way to underived bases. There are a few nouns with this pattern that may also
have a source as dervied adjectives, e.g. maæfifiaki ‘the burr grass Cenchrus biflorus’
(possibly with reference to its prickly burrs), meccekì ‘the shrub Guiera senegaliensis’
(possibly with reference to the taste of traditional medicines made from its leaves).

aærraækì

‘bitter, referring to taste of various kinds of bark used for medicine’

daæfifiaækì

‘rather bitter, like eggplant’

fiuættuki ≠ fiuættuk ‘bitter; evil acting’
shaælluki

‘stongly organic smell, such as fish or sour milk’

teælleækì

‘slick, slimy’

2. Syntax of Primary Adjectives

Primary adjectives participate in certain canonical syntactic patterns, listed in the

introductory paragraph of this chapter.

2.1. Attributive modifiers. As attributive modifiers of nouns, adjectives follow the noun
in the construction Noun!næ!Adjective. When N

1

ends in a short vowel, the linker næ

becomes the coda of the syllable and the L attaches to that syllable, resulting in a falling
tone if the final syllable of N

1

is H or a single L syllable if the final syllable of N

1

is L . If

N

1

ends in a long vowel, a diphthong, or a consonant, the linker is a syllabic nasal bearing

L. The nasal linker, whether syllabic or a syllable coda, is subject to regular nasal
assimilation processes to place of articulation of a following consonant, or, in the case of
a following l or r, complete assimilation (##).

suæ∫aæΩ algaæji

‘green gown’

wuæyo]Ω gaæraΩ

‘deep hole’

suæ∫aæm maænshuæ ‘old gown’

bìfiìkôn ndaælaær

‘fine flour’

suæ∫aæl lìpìla\}

‘blue gown’

ìndôΩ goæΩ

‘nice bed’

suæ∫aæn saælfiìnaæi

‘silk shirt (“slick shirt”)’

me¥muær roæmoΩ

‘evil person’

suæ∫aæΩ aæraæha

‘cheap gown’

me¥muæm pe\sìfieæ ‘useless person’

teæmshôm pe¥tìlaæ ‘white sheep’

bo¥ Ωæ gaæraΩ

‘big mouth’

o¥shôm buæ&uæm

‘black goat’

raækka\} Ωæ gaæraΩ

‘big ankle bracelet’

koæm mæ moænduæ

‘female bovine’

zo¥la\} mæ pe¥tìlaæ

‘white mudfish’

koæm mæ gorzo

‘male bovine’

kanjaæu Ωæ gaæraΩ

‘big hourglass drum’

go\roæn daæfifiaækì ‘rather bitter kola’

moi ræ roæmoΩ

‘evil king’

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aættôn daælìntaæ

‘sweet atti’

daæwun mæ po\yo

‘new mat’

otto]n zoæi

‘tasty food’

∫aluæm næ sêrì

‘big horn’

biyeæl lì&y&yìu

‘slimy sauce’

oæyum lÆ lìpìla\}

‘blue metal’

la¥woæn fioæle

‘small child’

moær mæ buæ&uæm

‘black oil’

A few adjectives have morphological plurals. As an attributive modifier, a formally

plural adjective gives a noun phrase a plural interpretation, even if the noun does not have
a morphological plural (see ## for forms of noun plurals). For nouns with morphological
plurals, noun and attributive adjective must both take plural form.

uwwa]n asseæ

cf. •o¥shôn asseæ, •uwwa]n sêrì

‘big goats’
(*sing. noun + pl. adj., *pl. noun + sing. adj.)

mi&y&ya]n garreæ

cf. •me¥muæn garreæ, •mi&y&ya]n gaæraΩ

‘tall men’

da\nde]n fiolleæ

cf. •la¥woæn fiolleæ, •da\nde]n fioæle

‘small children’

kuælinshe]n goægine

cf. •kulaæn goægine, •kuælinshe]n goæΩ

‘nice calabashes’

koæmshine]n gora¥ji

‘male bovines’

koæmshine]n mondeæ

‘female bovines’

uwwa]n buæ&uæm

‘black goats’ (no pl. form for bù’ùm ‘black’)

suæ∫inshe]l lìpìla\}

‘blue gowns’ (no pl. form for lìpìla\} ‘blue’)

boæzoæn garreæ

‘deep wells’ (no pl. form for bòzò ‘well’)

ìndôn goægine

‘nice beds’ (no pl. form for ìndi ‘bed’)

When an adjective is an attribute of the head noun in a more complex noun phrase,

næ!Adjective can fall at the end of the phrase (the PRM yê may follow the adjective). One
has the sense that næ!Adjective functions as an appositive phrase to the NP that it modifies,
e.g. ‘my goat, that black (one)’

o¥shi-no]-m buæ&uæm

‘my black goat’

mo\taæ-su]-n asseæ

‘their big cars’

teæmshi Bamoi mæ pe¥tìlaæ

‘Bamoi’s white sheep’

paætaæ koæsum Ωæ gaæraΩ

‘the long tail of the mouse’ (tail-of mouse næ long)

o¥shi oshe]-n daæi ye] ~ o¥shô-n daæi osheæ

‘this red goat’

mi&y&ya maæina\ næ gaærre ye] ~ mi&y&ya]-n gaærre maæina\

‘those tall men’

daæwun kunuæm mæ po\yo ~ daæwun mæ po\yo kunuæm

‘three new mats’

da\nde gora¥ji dìr baæfiì næ garreæ ~ da\nde gora¥jôΩ garre dìr baæfiì ‘fifteen tall boys’

me¥muæ mo\fiô-Ω… gaæraΩ

‘a certain tall man’

vs. me¥muæ-n gaæraΩ mo\fiì

‘

ONE

tall man (not

TWO

)’

Where the ordering of an adjective with another post-nominal modifier can vary, as in

the last few example sets above, there are meaning differences, generally subtle and
pragmatically based, though with some modifiers, as in the last example, the ordering can

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give quite distinct interpretations. When a noun has both an adjective and a relative
clause as post-nominal modifiers, the adjective precedes the relative clause, e.g. gam mæ
pe¥tìlaæ la¥ ìn goæjjuwo¥ ye] ‘the white ram that I bought’. Placing the adjective phrase after
the relative clause (gam la¥ ìn goæjjuwo¥ mæ pe¥tìlaæ) tends to be interpreted ‘the ram that I
bought is a/the white one’, i.e. an equational sentence with the adjective phrase as the
predicate.

When a single head noun has more than one adjectival modifier, the adjectives all

follow the noun.

2

The linking morpheme næ is optional before the second adjective (and

presumably later adjectives, but even utterances with two adjectives are somewhat
forced). There are two possible interpretations for this omission: either (1) the first næ is
serving to link all following adjectives, or (2) omission of the second næ is the optional
omission that is always more or less available for

NOUN

+

ADJECTIVE

constructions (see the

next paragraph).

teæmshôn sêri (mæ) pe¥tìla

‘a big white sheep’

aættôn pe¥tìlaæ (næ) zoæi

‘white tasty atti’

me¥muæn gaæraΩ (mæ) pe¥sìfieæ

‘a big useless person’

The linker næ may be omitted in N!+!A attributive constructions. In the absence of

context, such constructions are indistinguishable from equational sentences with
adjectival predicates (##), i.e. teæmshi pe¥tìlaæ could be read as either ‘white sheep’ or ‘the
sheep is white’. Note that Low Tone Raising (LTR—##) does not apply to adjectives
with initial L tone in attributive constructions, whether or not næ is present. When næ is
present, the L of næ is audible (see examples above). This L blocks LTR, and one
explanation for the failure of LTR to apply in direct N!+!A contructions is that a floating
L is still present, blocking LTR but failing to surface because of the absence of a docking
site. However, other post-nominal modifiers, including cardinal numbers (##),
demonstratives (##), and the relative conjunction la¥¶ya¥ (##) also fail to undergo LTR.
Blockage of LTR may thus be a general feature across the boundary between a noun and
a post-nominal modifier.

aæmma ∫eæneæm ≠ aæmma]n ∫eæneæm

‘sour water’

suæ∫æaæ algaæji ≠ suæ∫aæn algaæji

‘green gown’

la¥woæ fioæle ≠ la¥woæn fioæle

‘small child’

daæwum maænshuæ ≠ daæwum mæ maænshuæ

‘old mat’

The human nouns mòndù ‘woman’ and gorzo ‘man’ and their respective plurals can

function as true adjectives meaning ‘female’ and ‘male’ respectively (see examples
above). There are several other nouns which, alone, refer to humans, but which can also
used with other nouns as “quasi-adjectives”.

2

There are restrictions, probably with a universal linguistic basis, on the ordering of adjectives, similar to

those that render English big white cow as acceptable but ?*white big cow marginal at best. We have not
studied this issue in Bole.

6

As noun

As “quasi-adjective’

mànshi (pl) manshe ‘old person’

maænshi o\shi

‘old goat’

manshe uwwaæ

‘old goats’

bùnga (pl) bunje

‘young man’

la¥woæ buænga

‘good-looking youth’

da\nde bunje

‘good-looking youths’

gùnyò (pl) guæma\ya

‘young woman’

la¥woæ guænyoæ

‘pretty girl’

da\nde guæma\ya

‘pretty girls’

Unlike true adjectives, constructions with these words do not use a linking næ (*la¥woæ

buænga ‘good-looking youth’, *da\nde guæma\ya ‘pretty girls’). Mànshi ‘old’ (referring to
animates—cf. the true adjective mànshù in §1, applied only to inanimates), which
precedes the noun that it delimits, seems to be a noun in that it conditions Low Tone
Raising (##). Thus, o¥shi ‘goat’ in the phrase above, has initial L tone in citation form.

2.2. Predicate adjectives, subjective complements, and objective complements.
Adjectives may be predicates in equational sentences (##), they may be subjective
complements that predicate properties of the subjects of certain verbs (##), and they can
be predicate complements to objects (##). An adjective alone can function as an
identificational sentence meaning ‘it is [Adjective]’.

Predicate adjectives

gombira teælleækì

‘okra is slimy’

se¥fii ∫o\ra ye aærraækì

‘the diarrhea medicine is bitter’

insho\ beæyi njuæruæl

‘today it is cold’ (“today the place is cold”)

jÏnì zoæi sa

‘he is not feeling well’ (“his body is not pleasant”)

halìnì geæde

‘he has a strange personality’
(“his character is different”)

dìbinoænì daælìntaæ sa, saæmpìnaæi

‘his dates are not sweet, they are tasteless’

fiuættuk mana taæni

‘it is bitter as mahogany’

du∫∫a sa

‘it is not short’

Subjective complements

aætti ê jÏnì daælìntaæ

‘the atti has turned out (“done”) sweet’

beæyi ê jÏnì njuæruæl

‘the placed has gotten (“done”) cole’

Lengì fioæwaj jÏto gaæraΩ

‘Lengi has gotten tall’

Objective complements (usually mark the complement with bo¥ “in the capacity of”)

oæssu\ bìfiiki ndalar

‘he ground the flour to a fine texture’

∫ìllu\ ga¥bìn (bo¥) pe¥lìlaæ

‘he painted the house white’

oæppan boæzoæ (bo¥) gaæraΩ

‘they dug the well deep’

shukuær ma¥tu\ aætti ye bo¥ daælìntaæ ‘sugar made the atti sweet’

See chapters ## and ## for additional examples of adjectives serving as subjective

and objective complements.

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2.3. Adjectives in nominal uses:

pe¥tìlaæ ‘whiteness’. Adjectives can be used as nouns

that refer to the qualities they express (‘white’ ‡ ‘whiteness’, ‘long’ ‡ ‘length’, etc.).
One use as a noun expressing a quality is as N1 of N!+!N genitive constructions. A
number of idioms have this structure.

3

pe¥tìlaæ suæ∫aæ

‘whiteness of the gown’

gaæram boæzoæ

‘depth of the well’

daælìntaæ aætti

‘sweetness of the atti’

goæΩ inne

‘nice looking’ (“niceness of seeing”)

buæ&uæm tìlo

‘sadness’ (“blackness of heart”)

buæ&uæm ko¥yi

‘ignorance’ (“blackess of head”)

soækoæwum boæ

‘glibness’ (“lightness of mouth”)

Adjectives used as nouns of quality can also occupy other syntactic positions typical

of nouns, such as subject, direct object, and object of a preposition

fiuættuki wa\na\woæ

‘something bad has befallen me”
(“bitterness has gotten me”)

kuæma\ zoæi

‘he felt pleasure’

onna\ suæ∫aæ bo¥ saraæi

‘he gave me a shirt for nothing’ (“for freeness”)

2.4. Adjectives in pronominal use:

mæ pe¥tìlaæ ‘the white one’. Adjectives cannot be

used alone to mean “a/the referent with quality X”, as in young and old alike enjoyed the
show. A construction næ!

ADJECTIVE

expresses this meaning. This construction is the same

as næ!

NUMBER

used to express ordinals (##).

rawaænôn daæi gaæ mæ pe¥tìlaæ

‘a red turban and a white one’

Poæyyu\ kuæfia yaællaæ@ - Poæyyu\ næ dai. ‘Which pot broke? - The

RED

one broke.’

Än gaæ ke¥ke]m po\yo gaæ mæ maænshuæ. Än &ya\tu¥ bo¥ ndoæla mæ maænshuæ.

‘I have a new bicycle and an old one. I prefer the old one.’

reæwe]n garre gaæ næ du∫∫a

‘tall trees and short ones’

3. Derived Adjectival Expressions

Although the number of primary adjectives in Bole is small, it has an extensive

repertoire of methods for predicating properties to referents. One such method is to use
nouns expressing qualities in “have” sentences (##) or an phrases (##). Another is to use

3

Compare buæ&uæm tìlo ‘sadness (“blackness of heart”) with the equivalent Hausa expressions ba˚in cikÏ

(“blackness of stomach”). In Hausa, the unmarked attributive adjective phrase type is Adjective-n/-r!Noun,
leading to theinterpretation that the Hausa construction literally means ‘black stomach’. Bole cannot place
attribute adjectives prenominally, hence the only interpretation of the Bole phrase is “blackness of
stomach”. Assuming that this phrase is a shared idiom across Chadic languages, one is lead to believe that
the Hausa idiom is also a N!+!N genitive construction rather than an A!+!N construction.

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ideophonic adjectives, which fall semantically and syntactically between ideophones and
adjectives (##). There are also productive and semi-productive processes for deriving
adjectives and adjective-like expressions.

3.1. Partial and full reduplication of adjectives. Adjectives themselves may be
reduplicated to give an attenuated meaning, like English “–ish”. Full reduplication is the
norm, e.g. dài-dài ‘reddish’, bù’ùm-bù’ùm ‘blackish’, zòi-zòi ‘rather pleasant’, ∫eæneæm-

∫eæneæm ‘sourish’. A few adjectives undergo partial, rather than full reduplication. Those
idenfied from the list in §1 are peæpe¥tìlaæ ‘whitish’ (also allows full reduplication) and

a&algaæji ‘greenish’. The adjective root ∫u]l ‘yellow’, which is usually used in the
reduplicated form ∫ul∫uæl in the base meaning ‘yellow’, has a reduplicated form ∫u∫ul∫uæl.
Not all adjectives allow reduplication, e.g. *fioæle-fioæle “smallish”, *goæΩ-goæΩ “niceish”
seem unacceptable. There are no obvious semantic or phonological principles that
distinguish those that allow reduplication and those that do not.

All formally plural adjectives allow full reduplication. e.g. fiolle-fiolleæ ‘small (plural),

go¥gine-go¥gine ‘nice (plural)’. Related to this is the fact that reduplication of plural
adjectives has a different semantic effect from reduplication of singular adjectives.
Rather than implying attenuation of the quality of the referents, reduplication of plural
adjectives distributes the base quality over the members of a group, with the additional
implication of there being many such referents. Thus, da\nde]n fiolle-fiolleæ means ‘a
large number of children, each of whom is small’, not “children who are smallish”.

Reduplicated adjectives behave syntactically like simple adjectives, using the

attributive construction N!næ!Adjective and appearing alone as predicates or as subjective
and objective complements:

Attributive: suæ∫aæm pepe\tìlaæ

4

‘whitish shirt’

reæwinsh]n garre-garreæ

‘many tall trees’

(see comment above on meaning of reduplcated plural adjectives)

Predicate:

aætti ye ∫eæneæm-∫eæneæm

‘the atti is kind of sour’

Obj. comp: Lengì fiuækkuærad denjeæ fiolle-fiolleæ

‘Lengi kneaded the fura into numerous small balls’

3.2. Color expressions from “water of X”. Like many African languages, Bole has
only a small number of underived native words to express colors—in the list in §1, only
dài ‘red’, pe¥tìlaæ ‘white’, and bù’ùm ‘black’ have no apparent source through borrowing,
derivation, or extension of an ideophone to adjectival use. A few color adjectives come
from reduplicated forms of nouns that have characteristic colors (see §3.3), but the
productive way of describing objects as having colors for which there are no specific
terms is the construction àmma!X ‘water of X’, where X is a noun referring to something
that has a characteristic color. Examples are àmma woli (“water of earth”) ‘brown’,

4

The HHLL tone pattern of pepe\tìlaæ ‘whitish’ is that of the productive reduplication noun form meaning

“like!X” (see §3.3 and ##). Because of the existence of this pattern, it may be that partially reduplicated
adjectives can use either a pattern that would reduplicate the initial syllable with its base tone (L in this
case—cf. pe¥tìlaæ ‘white’) or the pattern with a H tone reduplicant characteristic of the nominal pattern.

9

aæmma go\roæ (“water of kola”) ‘orange’ (chewing kola nuts turns saliva orange), àmma
mocci (“water of locust bean”) ‘bright yellow’ (the pulp inside locust bean pods is bright
yellow), àmma takà eme¥ ‘the color of this shoe’. “Water!of!X” expressions can be used
attributively by juxtaposition in a N+N genitive construction,

5

e.g. suæ∫aæ aæmma woli

‘brown shirt’, sùwa amma woli ‘brown appearance, browness’. “Water!of!X”
constructions cannot appear directly as predicate modifiers for the reason that a phrase
like “suæ∫aæ ye aæmma woli” would mean ??“the shirt is brownness”. The preposition
mana ‘like’ or some other means of avoiding this is required, e.g.

suæ∫aæ ye mana aæmma woli

‘the shirt is brown’
(“the shirt is like the color of earth”)

suæ∫aæ ye suæwanì aæmma woli

‘the shirt is brown’
(“the shirt, its appearance is the color of earth”)

suæ∫aæ ye ma\ jÏnì mana aæmma woli ‘the shirt has become brown’

(“the shirt has become like the color of earth”)

3.3. CV reduplication meaning “

NOUN

-like”. A productive process in Bole allows

reduplication of the intial CV of a noun to produce a word meaning “

NOUN

-like”. The

reduplicated syllable bears H tone and the vowel is short regardless of length of the base
noun. Examples are gugu¥sho ‘stone-like’ < gu¥sho, yaya\yaæ ‘sand-like’ < ya¥ya¥. (See ##
for a fuller description and additional examples.) These derived words can describe
adjective-like properties of nouns, though they can only be used in predicative functions,
not as direct attributive modifiers, i.e. a phrase like *dabbàn zozònge ‘an animal with
hyena-like properties’ is ungrammatical.

dabbaæ ye zozoænge

‘the animal is hyena-like’ (< zònge)

oæli ye yaya\yaæ

‘the ground is sand-like’ (< ya¥yaæ)

ba¥ ka inna\nì zozoænge

‘it looks hyena-like’ (“if you see it [it is] hyena-like’)

ba¥ ka kuma\ fii"lnì tetemshi ‘it sounds like a sheep’ (< tèmshi)

(“if you hear its voice [it is] sheep-like’)

A few expressions coming from this source, perhaps from frequent use, have become

lexicalized as true adjectives, permitting N!næ!Adjective phrases.

suæ∫aæm bibiyeæ kuæshi ‘light green shirt’ < biyeæ kuæshi ‘sauce of baobab leaves’

suæ∫aæm momocci

‘yellow shirt’

< mòcci ‘locust bean’

Another adjective likely from this source is tutu\rì ‘greenish’ in the list in §1, but

there is no extant word *tu\rì in modern Bole. An adjective from a similar, but non-
productive CVC(V)- reduplicative source (##) is but-bùto ‘grey’ < bùto ‘ashes’, e.g.

suæ∫aæm butbuæto ‘grey shirt’.

5

This is interpreted as an N+N genitive because Low Tone Raising (##) applies to àmma where the

conditions are met. Post-nominal adjectives do not undergo LTR, with or without the linker næ (see §2.1).