Adjectives
Adjectives agree with the nouns they modify in gender, number and case. Because the stress of adjectives falls on the endings (if any) they have retained their inflections much more than have the nouns.
There are three declensions of adjectives (vowel stem, consonant stem, N-stem) of which the consonant declension has subdeclensions. An adjective may generally be declined in full from three principle parts (feminine singular absolutive and genitive and masculine plural absolutive), so they are listed on the format ‘FSgA (FSgG, MPlA)’, e.g. sjubáy (sjubá, sjobáz), red; but see below.
Adjectives have a ‘strong’ and a ‘weak’ stem. These arose because the adjectives were accented on different syllables in different parts, and so different vowels were lost when unstressed vowels disappeared. The FSgG always has the strong stem and the MPlA always the weak one; the FSgA has the strong stem only in the vowel declension.
Note that the neuters and masculine share a plural declension (called masculine).
| vowel declension | consonant declension | N declension | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case | FSg | NSg | MSg | FPl | MPl | FSg | NSg | MSg | FPl | MPl | FSg | NSg | MSg | FPl | MPl |
| A | $-y | -i | -nji | -vuy | -az | -Ai | -Ai | -nji | -uy | -Baz | -nji | -nji | -nji | $-vuy | -naz |
| E | -vu | $-yvu | -vu | -vuv | -av | -u | -Aiv | -vu | -uv | -Bav | -vu | -njiv | -vu | $-vuv | -nav |
| M | -sja | $-ysja | $-sja | -vusj | -at | $-tsja | -Aisj | $-sja | -usj | -Bat | $-sja | -njisj | $-sja | $-vusj | -nat |
| G | $- | -i | $~ | -zqo | -a | $- | -Ai | $~ | -o | -Ba | $- | -nji | $~ | $-zqo | -na |
- The stress always falls on the final syllable of the adjective.
- A and B are two consonants, neither of which is fully predictable from the other.
- $ indicates that the strong stem should be used; its absence indicates that the weak stem is to be used.
- ~ indicates that the preceding vowel, if i or u, becomes o.
- The sound changes listed under Phonology apply; in particular, -y disappears after -i. Occasionally this means that the weak stem has to be listed among the principle parts, because it is obscured in the parts that should provide it; for instance zjinjyí (zjin-, zjiná, zjinjyáz), quick - cf. FSgE zjinu.
Reduplication of the stem is used to intensify adjectives. The reduplicated part is hyphenated to the adjective, and the sound changes listed under Phonology apply.