Predicative forms of adjectives in nenets sentences of qualitative characterization

Abstract

Nenets adjectives and nouns in the position of the predicate take personal and tense affixes without a copula. The nominal predicate paradigm in sentences with semantics of characterization includes not only synthetic personal and tense forms, but also analytical constructions in which the adjective is combined with an auxiliary existential verb to express negation, modal and aspectual meanings. The nominal predicate paradigm is represented by two subsystems: the meanings of personality and temporality are expressed synthetically, while modal and aspectual meanings are expressed analytically, the corresponding affixes are attached to the auxiliary verb ŋes’ 'to be'. Personal and temporal forms do not belong to the word as a part of speech, but to the syntactic position of the predicate. Nenets adjectives show signs of transitivity, as they can take verbal affixes.