Categorial Hybrids in Kambaata1

Abstract: The paper discusses three categorial hybrids in the East Cushitic language Kambaata, viz. negative participles, agent adjectives and verbal nouns, all of which are shown to combine properties of two word classes (lexical categories) systematically. Unlike their affirmative counterparts, Kambaata negative relative verbs qualify as verbal adjectives (participles), because, apart from having verbal inflectional morphology and a completely verbal argument structure, they have also acquired adjectival morphology to indicate case/gender agreement with their head nouns. The combination of verbal and adjectival features is less balanced for agent adjectives, which retain fewer properties of the verbs they are based on; they are still able to govern objects and adverbial clauses, though. Kambaata verbal nouns behave almost entirely like verbs in relation to their dependents but as nouns in the clause they are arguments of. I argue that the negative participle formation and the verba