The expression of property concepts in Etulo

Abstract

Property concepts refer to properties, qualities or characteristics of referents (Thompson 1988). In many languages, there seems to be a correspondence between the expression of property concepts and the adjective category. There are however languages that express property concepts via means other than the adjective category. This paper examines the means by which property concepts are expressed in Etulo. It is observed that property concepts in Etulo are expressed by qualificatives. Etulo qualificatives subsume a small class of adjectives, a subset of verbs and nouns, and a class of ideophones. We adopt Dixon’s (2004) typological framework in establishing a distinct category of adjectives in Etulo.