A Grammar of Turkish Sign Language (TİD)

A prenominal adjective occurs before the noun.

 

          [red apple] exist

'There is a red apple.'                                   

        (Nuhbaloğlu and Özsoy 2014: 15)

 

A postnominal adjective occurs after the noun.

 

[rabbit big] strong

'The big strong rabbit'                                                                

   (Özsoy et al. 2012: 8)

 

The adjectives for size, age, color and value follow the head noun.  young below expresses the age.

 

[person young] internet like

'The young person likes internet.'                                           

(Özsoy et al. 2012: 6)

                                              

cool below expresses the value.

 

[man cool] put_on_coat

'The cool man is putting on his coat.'                                   

      (Özsoy et al. 2012: 6)

 

Adjectives for physical properties, human characteristic/propensities and speed usually follow the head noun as well. The following are examples of a physical property and a human propensity, respectively.

 

square uneven

'uneven square'                                                                        

(Özsoy et al. 2012: 6)

 

[husband very jealous] problem

'A very jealous husband is a problem.'                                

  (Özsoy et al. 2012: 6)

 

Adjectives for difficulty, similarity and location also occur postnominally. The examples below exemplify adjectives of these notions respectively.

 

exam [question difficult] there_ıs

'There was/is a difficult question in the exam.'    

 (adapted from Özsoy et al. 2012: 6)

 

 [place different] stay

'S/he lives in a different place.' 

                                               (Özsoy et al. 2012: 6)

 

sibling [building high] live

'My sibling lives in a high building'                                       

(Özsoy et al. 2012: 7)

 

Adjectives can also occur prenominally in TİD as the following examples show:

 

long beard

'long beard'

 

brown beard

'brown beard'

 

pointed head

'pointed head'

 

round box

'round box'

 

hot coffee

'hot coffee'                                                                              

(Özsoy et al. 2012: 6)

 

Adjectives that indicate similarity or opposition can also occur prenominally. For instance, the adjective other occurs prenominally below.

 

[other dog] fish eat^neg

'The other dog didn't eat the fish.'

(Özsoy et al. 2012: 8)