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For example, agglutinative/fusional languages where case or possessive suffixes/endings must be attached both to a noun and all adjectives that modify it. Or any other kind of noun-adjective agreement.

Sir Cornflakes
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    I think in languages that have case, even outside Indo-European, it is more common than not that at least attributive adjectives agree with their head noun in case (and number). Possessive suffixes are a different matter; off the top of my head, I’m not aware of any languages that mark both nouns and adjectives modifying them for possessor. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 14 '23 at 11:38

5 Answers5

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Egyptian and many of the older Semitic languages put a /t/ on feminine nouns and any adjectives modifying them, and many also mark number (singular, dual, plural) on both. A few of these languages (e.g. Akkadian) also still have case systems, and adjectives must agree in case with the noun they modify.

Draconis
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  • Amazigh languages also use /t/ for marking the feminine and a masculine/feminine gender split is also attested in all branches – Tristan Aug 14 '23 at 10:31
  • Modern Standard Arabic also has a case system, and adjectives agree with the noun they describe in case/number/gender – psmears Aug 15 '23 at 13:54
  • By "Egyptian", do you mean the Egyptian dialect of Arabic, or Coptic? – T.E.D. Aug 15 '23 at 14:40
  • @T.E.D. Egyptian Arabic does not match that description. – psmears Aug 15 '23 at 15:26
  • @psmears - Its also not an "older Semitic language", I don't think, just a local flavor of modern Arabic. However, the sentence was phrased present-tense, and I thought Coptic was a "liturgical language" (no native speakers). – T.E.D. Aug 15 '23 at 15:31
  • @T.E.D.: That's entirely right, though Coptic isn't an "older Semitic language" either :) (I guess that's why it's "Egyptian and ... older Semitic languages). But yes, it doesn't have native speakers. (FWIW some people argue Modern Standard Arabic doesn't either...). – psmears Aug 15 '23 at 15:43
  • @T.E.D. I'm fairly sure that Draconis here means what linguists term “Middle Egyptian,” which is neither modern Egyptian Arabic nor Coptic (although Coptic is its descendant). – Wtrmute Aug 21 '23 at 17:58
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In the Atlantic-Congo languages that have noun classes, and that is most of them, adjectives agree in the class with the noun they modify.

In the Bantu subfamily, the adjectives agrees by receiving the class prefix corresponding to the class of the noun, e. g. in Swahili:

mtu mzuri — a nice person (Class 1)
watu wazuri — nice people (Class 2)

In Fula, a Senegambian language that has about 25 noun classes, the adjective receives a class suffix and the initial consonant mutation into the mutation degree corresponding to the class of the noun it modifies:

loonde woɗeere — a red pot (Class NDE)
looɗe boɗeeje — red pots (Class ƊE)

Yellow Sky
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In Finnish, adjectives agree with the nouns they modify in terms of case and number.

qrsngky
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In Burushaski, adjectives also agree in class/gender with the noun they modify.

earlyinthemorning
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There is a noun-adjective agreement in Georgian (for consonnant endings), in Chechen (class agreement), in Finnish, in Estonian, in Arabic, in Hebrew...

Sebastolaf Gravberg
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