The use of attributive adjective inflection was unmarked in incipient Afrikaans during the 18th and 19th centuries, and based on (however, not consistently) the gender-based inflection of adjectives before masculine and feminine nouns in Dutch. In time, the system of inflection shifted to the phonological structure of the adjective itself. Raidt (1983) provides a well-structured framework to categorise the various environments determining attributive inflection. (Raidt, E.H. 1983)

The general rule is that the attributive formant -e is suffixed to polysyllabic adjectives, more specifically adjectives containing a grammatical morpheme. Some examples:

Exceptions are those already ending in -e, such as eie own in the example below.

Adjectives ending in -er whether it forms part of the stem or represents a grammatical morpheme (such as the comparative suffix), do not, by default, inflect (whether is it a grammatical morpheme or not), as illustrated by the examples below:

There are some exceptions to the -er rule, where forms with -er have the status of collocations as part of fixed (inherited from 17th century Dutch) expressions, and are inflected, as in:

In addition, adjectival compounds based on an uninflectable monosyllabic stem do not inflect, for example an intensive form such as 'n spierwit landskap a muscle.white landscape a snow-white landscape, or a compound of two lexical morphemes, such as goedkoop groente good.buy vegetables cheap vegetables But note that adjectives ending in -er ,

Various exceptions to the default apply to both polysyllabic (as above) and monosyllabic stems. Those applicable to monosyllabic stems are discussed under the heading where the relevant phonological process is categorised.

While it is extremely difficult to make provision for all possible phonological forms, certain regularities regarding monosyllabic adjective stems can be identified. Monosyllabic adjective stems receive the attributive formant -e, inter alia, in the following cases:

• If the stem ends in a consonant cluster which consists of a sonorant plus /d/ (-md, -nd, -ld and -rd )

• If the stem ends in a vowel plus /x/

Note that the intervocalic deletion of /x/ can bring about spelling changes, as illustrated in some examples above.

• After a long or high vowel (or diphthong) plus /d/

While this group is relatively restricted, some adjectives ending in /d/ under similar phonological (and orthographic) changes as in the case of invertocalic /x/ deletion, undergo intervocalic /d/ deletion, causing the concomitant spelling changes, as discussed above. Orthographically, an important difference is that (except for breed broad, of which the attributive form is breë (<breed·e)), the schwa is never represented by means of a diaeresis ( ë) in the case of /d/ deletion. Adjective stems ending in -d include also dood dead, goed good, goud golden, koud cold and wyd wide.

Note that, phonologically, /d/ elision causes glide insertion, leading to forms such as [vəijə] and [kəuwə].

An example of an exception is oud old, of which the attributive form is ou, as in die Ou Testament the Old Testament, where /d/ deletion does take place, but no inflection. This is one of a few cases where the distinction between the attributive and predicate/adverbial forms are marked in a different way than by means of the schwa suffix. Two examples in this regard are jonk young and lank long, of which the attributive forms are jong, as in 'n jong meisie a young girl, and lang, as in 'n lang reis a long journey, respectively.

Returning to intervocalic /d/ deletion: Also note that inflection without /d/ deletion does occur in the case of some adjective stems containing a short vowel such as glad smooth, but that the vowel quality is retained by doubling the consonant in the spelling:

Other verb stems with short vowels and different auslaut consonants are facultative, and may or not inflect, as in the case of dor arid and fel severe, as in the following examples:

• If the stem ends in a vowel plus /f/

Note that intervocalic voicing of /f/ occurs in all cases, as well as consonant doubling in the spelling where the quality of short vowels has to be maintained.

BUT

• If the stem ends in a voiceless obstruent plus underlying /t/

Diachronically, the deletion of /t/ in syllable-final consonant clusters can be said to have taken place during the evolution of Afrikaans from 17th century Dutch; however, the /t/ reappears when the syllable structure is altered as a result of inflection, and /t/ starts the final syllable.

Exceptions in colloquial language occur in the case of some items, for example 'n sleg vent a nasty character/fellow, but then with added emotive content.

• If the stem ends in the rounded front vowel /y/, with epenthesis of /v/

This phenomenon is comparable to the syllable-initial realisation of cluster-final /t/ in adjective stems, except that its origin, evident from the spelling in Dutch, apparently represented a glide, and not an obstruent.

Possibly as a result of the low frequency of this combination, the uninflected form is found often in examples like the following:

• If the stem ends in a consonant cluster, with final /s/.

• If the stem ends in a vowel plus /s/

In this category, various exceptions occur, which in many cases correlate with semantic nuances, such as grys hare grey hair, but tot die gryse ouderdom until the grey age until old age, los buie loose showers scattered showers, but losse sedes loose morals. In many cases, inflection also correlates with a figurative connotation, or emphasis .