Adjectives? Think again: Statives in Tagalog Aldea, Aldrin Joseph, Chu-Santos, Christel Anne, Katigbak, Laura Clarissa, Perez, Chiara Gabrelle ABSTRACT This paper will examine the word class referred to as statives and its significance in Tagalog. Previous studies have referred to statives as adjectives, adjectival passives and stative verbs. This paper recognizes that Tagalog has no adjective class and instead uses statives for modification. Statives may occur in 4 different forms, 1.)ma-forms, 2.) un-affixed forms, 3.)forms with the transitive affix –in, and 4.) forms with both the intransitive affix m- and the transitive affix –in. These forms have been classified as statives because although they function for modification, they cannot be considered as a distinct adjective class because of their overlapping features with nouns and verbs. This paper will discuss the different discourse functions performed by the various forms of stative verbs and explore the overlapping morphosyntactic features namely the similarity in grammatical relations entailed by the affix in both statives and regular verbs. Unlike earlier studies which only identify and describe what statives are, this study focuses on the morphosyntactic properties and occurrences of statives in Tagalog. It is further asserted that although statives can function as either 1.) predicative, similar to verbs, 2.) modificational, similar to those classified as adjectives, and 3.) referential, similar to nouns, statives are neither of these General Terms Tagalog Morphosyntax, Philippine Linguistics, Tagalog Word Class Keywords Statives, Adjectives, Voice affixes 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. Where have all the adjectives gone? It has been an ongoing debate whether there exists a decisive adjective class across languages. Although it is usually easy to classify which are typical nouns and verbs, classifying adjectives is more problematic. This is true in the case of Philippine type languages, which has modifiers that cannot be distinctly grouped as an adjective class. Dixon has stated that some languages ascribe properties via other word classes, such as nouns, verbs and particles. Tagalog utilizes a class of verbs, referred to as stative verbs, or simply ‘statives’, as the means of modifying entities. 1.2. What has been said about Statives? Schachter and Otanes classified those which modify in Tagalog as a distinct class called adjectives. The most common forms are the unaffixed adjectives and the ma- adjectives. The unaffixed adjectives are subclassified into two: the first class lack inherently long vowels and are related to nouns and verbs that have an inherently long vowel in the penultimate position e.g. basag, buhay. The second class encompasses all other unaffixed adjectives that may or may not have an inherently long vowel but are not related to a verb or noun e.g. banal, berde. These two classes differ in the constructions they are able to occur in. The second class occurs in intensified constructions with napaka- and exclamations with kay e.g. napakabanal, napakaberde, kay banal, kay berde. However, the first class does not occur in such constructions i.e. napakabasag, napakabuhay, kay basag kay buhay are ungrammatical constructions. Ma- adjectives are formed by the prefix ma- and the ma- adjectival base. Some adjectival bases can occur independently as either an adjective or noun, while some do not. Adjectival bases that occur independently as nouns may be divided into two: those that designate abstract qualities and those that designate concrete objects. Bases that designate abstract qualities can occur in intensified constructions with napaka (napakabigat), with -um- verbs of becoming (bumigat) and exclamations with ang or kay (ang bigat, kay bigat). This is not applicable for those that designate concrete nouns. Such ma- adjectives formed with noun bases express the abundance of that which the base designates e.g. mabundok = abundance of mountains. Adjectival bases that occur independently as adjectives differ in that some express the same meaning as their ma- form while some do not. For example, mapayapa and payapa, malaganap and laganap have the same meaning, however, maputi and puti, mabilog ang bilog do not, as in the sentences: a1.). Maputi ang bulaklak. ‘The flower is white. (e.g. it has faded)’ a2.).Puti ang bulaklak. ‘The flower is naturally white.’