‘Adjective,’ as a natural word class, is almost non-existent in Kham. The entire class is comprised of three native words – ‘big,’ ‘small,’ and ‘short’ (plus ‘low’ and ‘narrow’ in some dialects) – and a handful of loan words from Nepali. All other words that serve in a modifying function are derived from some other word class through a nominalizing derivation. I will refer to members of the derived class as ‘adjectivals.’ All adjectives/adjectivals, whether derived or underived, share certain universal characteristics with a cross-linguistically valid adjective class with functional–typological definitions (Dixon 1977, Croft 1991). Their major function is description/modification rather than categorization/reference (as with nouns), or predication (as with verbs).

Kham adjective typology

Most modifiers/adjectivals in Kham are derived from verbs. As such, in terms of Dixon's (1977) adjective typology, Kham is a ‘strongly verbal’ language. In Dixon's classification, however, even strongly verbal languages typically mark at least some members of the ‘dimension, age, value, and color’ classes as true adjectives. Kham is extreme on this point; no inherent adjectives belong to the value and color classes, while only five belong to the dimension and age classes – gehppa ‘big,’ zimza ‘small,’ twĩ:za ‘short,’ saηoro ‘narrow,’ and purã:do ‘old,’ the latter two Nepali loans. The physical property class, as predicted, is comprised entirely of ‘deep’ verbs (except for a handful of adjectives borrowed from Nepali – ‘damp,’ ‘empty,’ ‘straight,’ ‘raw,’ and ‘fine textured’).

Another source for modifiers/adjectivals in Kham is a particular kind of noun.