Chapter 5 Were There Ever Any Adjectives? The Recognition of the Absence of an Autonomous Adjective Class in Tupi-Guarani as Demonstrated in the Earliest Missionary Grammars
In: Missionary Linguistic Studies from Mesoamerica to PatagoniaSearch for other papers by Justin Case in
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Abstract
There is a general consensus as to the absence of an independent syntactic class of adjectives in the Tupi-Guarani language systems. As demonstrated in Dietrich (2017), on a synchronic basis, notional adjectival are syntactically indistinguishable from nominals in these languages and quality attribution is performed by nominal-nominal juxtaposition. In this investigation, I consider the extent to which the four earliest missionary grammars dedicated to Tupi-Guarani languages were successful in capturing this syntactic behaviour in light of their contemporary linguistic instruments and comprehension. Accordingly, this work treats the missionary accounts regarding the lack of category-altering derivational morphology, quality attribution within the context of the noun phrase and the associated domain of non-verbal predication.