The meaning of adjectives in Russian. What are qualitative adjectives: examples

An adjective is an independent significant part of speech that combines words that

1) indicate a non-procedural attribute of the subject and answer the questions which?, whose?;

2) change according to gender, number and cases, and some - according to completeness/brevity and degrees of comparison;

3) in a sentence they are definitions or the nominal part of a compound nominal predicate.

Classes of adjectives by meaning

There are three categories of adjectives according to their meaning: qualitative, relative, possessive.

Qualitative adjectives denote the quality, property of an object: its size (large), shape (round), color (blue), physical characteristics (cold), as well as the tendency of the object to perform an action (chatty).

Relative adjectives denote the attribute of an object through the relationship of this object to another object (book), action (reading) or another attribute (yesterday). Relative adjectives are formed from nouns, verbs and adverbs; the most common suffixes of relative adjectives are the suffixes -n- (forest-n-oy), -ov- (ezh-ov-y), -in- (topol-in-y), -sk- (warehouse-sk-oh) , -l- (run-l-y).

Possessive adjectives denote that an object belongs to a person or animal and is formed from nouns with the suffixes -in- (mam-in), -ov- (otts-ov), -iy- (fox-iy). These suffixes appear at the end of the adjective stem (cf. the possessive adjective fathers-ov and the relative adjective fathers-ov-sk-ii).

Qualitative adjectives differ from relative and possessive adjectives at all linguistic levels:

1) only qualitative adjectives denote a characteristic that can manifest itself to a greater or lesser extent;

2) qualitative adjectives can have antonyms (deep - shallow);

3) only qualitative adjectives can be non-derivative, relative and possessive are always derived from nouns, adjectives, verbs;

4) qualitative adjectives form nouns with the meaning of an abstract attribute (strict-ness) and adverbs ending in -o (strict-o), as well as adjectives with a suffix of subjective assessment (blue-enk-y, evil-yush-y);

5) only qualitative adjectives have a full/short form and degrees of comparison;

6) qualitative adjectives are combined with adverbs of measure and degree (very large, but not *very reading).

Thus, we see that qualitative adjectives are grammatically opposed to relative and possessive adjectives, which, in turn, are grammatically very similar. The difference between relative and possessive adjectives is manifested only in the type of their declension (see declension of adjectives), which gives grounds for many researchers to combine them into one group of relative adjectives, into which, with the consistent grammatical separation of parts of speech, also ordinal numerals and pronominal adjectives fall.

Famous linguist Yu.S. Stepanov believed that the difference quality And relative meanings of adjectives is one of the most difficult. This division is carried out not even in all languages. There are already students in Russian high school learn to distinguish between these categories of adjectives.

As you probably remember, adjectives answer questions Which? which? which? which?

Which? – small yard, school teacher, bear claw.

Which? –a wonderful weather, wooden bench, fox face.

Which? –excellent mood, pearl necklace, horse hoof.

Which? – polite students, regional competitions, bunny ears.

Each row contains examples qualitative, relative and possessive adjectives. How to distinguish them? As has already become clear, simply asking a question about an adjective will not give a result; the category cannot be determined in this way.

Grammar and semantics(meaning of the word). Let's consider each category of adjectives by meaning .

Qualitative adjectives

It’s already clear from the name what these adjectives mean. quality of the item. What kind of quality could this be? Color(lilac, burgundy, bay, black), form(rectangular, square), physical characteristics of living things (fat, healthy, active), temporal and spatial features (slow, deep), general qualities, inherent in an animate object ( angry, funny, happy) and etc.

Also, most (but not all!) qualitative adjectives have whole line grammatical features, by which they are quite easy to distinguish from other adjectives. These features may not necessarily be a whole set for each quality adjective, but if you find that at least some attribute is suitable for this adjective - you have a quality adjective. So:

1) Qualitative adjectives denote a feature that can appear to a greater or lesser extent. Hence the ability to form degrees of comparison.

Thin - thinner - thinnest. Interesting – less interesting – the most interesting.

2) Form short forms. Long is long, short is small.

3) Combine with adverbs of measure and degree. Very beautiful, extremely entertaining, completely incomprehensible.

4) From qualitative adjectives you can form adverbs on -o(s) And nouns with abstract suffixes -ost (-is), -izn-, -ev-, -in-, -from- :magnificent - magnificent, clear - clarity, blue - blue, blue - blue, thick - thickness, beautiful - beauty.

5) You can also form words with diminutive or augmentative suffixes: angry - angry, dirty - dirty, green - green, healthy - hefty.

6) Can have antonyms: big - small, white - black, sharp - dull, stale - fresh.

As you can see, there are many signs, but it is absolutely not necessary to use all of them. Remember that some quality adjectives have no degrees of comparison, some abstract nouns do not form, some cannot be combined with adverbs of measure and degree, but they fit according to other criteria.

For example, adjective bay. This adjective does not fit any grammatical criteria, but it means color = quality of item, - that means it quality.

Or adjective beautiful. You can't tell very lovely, but you can form an adverb Wonderful. Conclusion: adjective quality.

Relative adjectives

Designate a sign through an attitude towards an object. What kind of relationship could this be - signs? Material, from which the item is made ( iron nail - iron nail, stone basement - stone basement, velvet dress - velvet dress); place, time, space (today's scandal is a scandal that happened today; intercity bus – a bus between cities; Moscow region – Moscow region); appointment(parent meeting - meeting for parents, children's store - store for children) and etc.

Signs of this and not temporary, but permanent, That's why Relative adjectives do not have all the features inherent in qualitative adjectives. This means that they do not form degrees of comparison(not to say that this house is wooden, and that one is more wooden), cannot be combined with adverbs of measure and degree(can't say very gold bracelet) etc.

But phrases with relative adjectives can be transform, replacing the adjective. For example, villager- village resident, milk porridge - porridge with milk, plastic cube - plastic cube.

We hope that it has become clearer to you how to distinguish between qualitative and relative adjectives. We’ll talk about possessive adjectives and some pitfalls in the next article.

Good luck in learning Russian!

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An adjective is an independent part of speech that combines words that denote non-procedural characteristics of an object and answer the questions, which? whose? This meaning is expressed in the non-independent inflectional categories of gender, number and case (perform the grammatical function of agreement). In a sentence, adjectives act as a modifier or a nominal part of a compound nominal predicate.

Types and categories of adjectives (qualitative, relative,possessive adjectives)

Ways to form adjectives

1. Full adjectives are formed by adding to a noun, any part of a word: a prefix, a suffix, or a prefix and a suffix together. They can also be formed by adding two bases. For example, swamp - swampy (suffixal), small (prefixal), underwater (prefix-suffexal),

purifying (complex suffixal), Adjectives can also be formed by compounding words: pale pink, three-year-old.

2. Short adjectives are formed from full qualitative adjectives and correlate with them semantically. Short adjectives are those which in the masculine singular have zero endings (black, beautiful), in the feminine singular - endings -а, -я (black, beautiful), in the neuter singular - endings -о, -е (black, beautiful), and in the plural of all genders - endings -и, -ы (black, beautiful). Short adjectives in a sentence act as a predicate. (“How beautiful, how fresh the roses were...”)

Lexico-grammatical categories of adjectives

1. Qualitative adjectives - denote the attribute of an object directly, that is, without relation to other objects (red, beautiful, kind), have forms of comparison and short forms; .

2. Relative adjectives - indicate a characteristic through a relationship to another object, they are derived from nominal bases (laboratory, wooden);

3. Possessive adjectives - denote belonging to a person or animal, that is, they contain an indication of the owner (foxes, fathers).

Most Russian surnames were also formed from possessive adjectives using suffixes - such as Ziminov - Popov, Ivanov, etc. d. All surnames in the masculine gender are declined, except those that end in o or even have a foreign origin. Female surnames are not declined.

Features of qualitative adjectives

Qualitative adjectives name attributes of objects that are usually perceived by the senses. For example: (sweet, bitter; white, black, blue; ringing, quiet; soft, smooth; wide, narrow, tall, etc.); denote character traits and characteristics of psychological make-up (wise, kind, insidious, cunning, etc.); express an assessment (excellent, wonderful, bad, disgusting, etc.). Such signs may appear to varying degrees. Compare: very bitter, more bitter, the most bitter, the bitterest, etc.

Only a few short adjectives express absolute sign an object that is unchanging, constant: deaf, lame, married, walking, brown, black, etc.

Usually short adjectives have both a full and a short form. For example: beautiful - beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. However, some groups of adjectives. short forms are not formed: words with suffixes - sk -, -oe- friendly, private, advanced, etc.

These are also some verbal formations with suffixes - l - (burnt, faded, etc., but: stunted - stunted, hoarse - hoarse, etc.); Short adjectives with the suffixes - ush-(-yush-), -enn- and the prefix raz-, denoting a high degree of manifestation of the characteristic (cunning, amiable, etc.). Short adjectives na - sh (ii), going back to the forms of the comparative degree and having lost their previous meaning (larger, younger, etc.); Qualitative adjectives. colors formed from nouns (chocolate, lilac, etc.); adjectives denoting the colors of animals (damn, black, etc.), etc.

For the most part, qualitative adjectives vary according to degrees of comparison. For example: beautiful - more beautiful, more (less) beautiful, the most beautiful, the most beautiful, but the comparative degree is not formed by qualitative adjectives. with the suffixes -sk-, -oe -, -l. Some adjectives do not even have short forms. For example: friendly, emaciated, etc. This also includes some adjectives such as fusible, heavy (with the suffix - to -), as well as all words denoting the colors of animals (brown, savrasy, etc.), individual non-derivative words (flat, dilapidated, etc.).

Qualitative adjectives are combined with adverbs of degree (very neat, well-mannered, etc.).

Qualitative adjectives are characterized by the following word-formation features: adjectives can be non-derivative (gray, black, etc.); most of the quality adjectives. forms adverbs on - o, - e, - and light, it seems, in a fatherly way. The vast majority of such adjectives also form abstract nouns, i.e. names of quality, for example: courage, beauty, blue.

Many qualitative adjectives form forms of evaluation (white, white, whitish, white-white, cheerful, kind). They easily enter into antonymic pairs (stingy - generous, cheerful - sad, tall - short), but at the same time, they realize these properties in different ways. For example: qualitative adjectives. poor, rich have all the listed characteristics, and adjectives like bay have only one characteristic - non-derivativeness.

Degrees of comparison of adjectives

Degrees of comparison of adjectives are a grammatical category of adjectives that expresses the relative difference or superiority in quality inherent in objects. In Russian, three forms are contrasted:

Positive,

Comparative

Excellent.

1. A positive degree names a characteristic without any opposition to another characteristic.

2. comparative indicates a characteristic that a given object has to a greater or lesser extent. Superlative indicates the highest degree

3. manifestations of this quality in comparison with other objects (cf.: kind - kinder - kinder).

Formation of comparison forms

1.Simple form

2.Complex shape

1. Comparative degree

The foundation will be laid. step. + suffix - her (faster, kinder)

The foundation will be laid. step. + suffix - e (harder)

lay the foundation. step. + suffix - she (before)

The form is put. step.

(more beautiful, less interesting)

2. Superlative

base position step. + suffix - eish -, -aysh - (after g, k, x): fastest, closest

most + shape floor. step. (fastest, closest)

Declension of adjectives and their types

Adjectives are declined, i.e. vary by gender, case and number, but their form depends on the form of the word on which they depend.

Gender, case and number of the adjective depend on relevant characteristics noun with which it agrees. Indeclinable adjectives are usually in postposition in relation to the noun; their gender, number, and case are determined syntactically by the characteristics of the corresponding noun: red jacket, beige jackets.

There are three types of declension of adjectives depending on the stem:

1. Solid: red, red, red

2. Soft: blue, blue, blue

3.mixed: large, large, large.

Adjectives with a base on a hard consonant are inclined according to the hard type, except for G, K, X, C and hissing ones: thin, white, straight, dear, boring, stupid, gray, bald, cool, well-fed.

The declension of adjectives includes changes in numbers, and in the singular - also in cases and genders.

The form of an adjective depends on the noun to which the adjective refers and with which it agrees in gender, number and case.

Short adjectives change only by gender and number.

The masculine and neuter forms differ in the nominative and accusative cases, but are the same in other forms.

There are different forms of the accusative case of adjectives in the singular male and in the plural, referring to animate and inanimate nouns:

V.p. = I.p. for inanimate nouns:

“For the violent raid he doomed their villages and fields to swords and fires” (A. Pushkin);

“The bandura players are quietly singing glorious songs about you” (D. Kedrin);

V.p. = R.p. with animate nouns:

“Masha did not pay attention to the young Frenchman” (A. Pushkin);

“And the whole earth should praise forever ordinary people, to whom I would pour stars into medals for their victories” (V. Sysoev).

Masculine adjectives in -oi are inflected in the same way as na -y, but always have a stressed ending: gray, young - gray, young - gray, young - about gray, about young.

The letter designation of the endings of adjectives in a number of cases sharply diverges from the sound composition: white - white [y], letny-ego - letny [y].

Syntactic function of an adjective

In a sentence, the adjective is mainly a definition, or a nominal part of a compound nominal predicate.

Transition to other parts of speech

Most often, participles become adjectives. Pronouns can also act as adjectives (no artist from him).

Adjectives, in turn, can be substantivized, that is, move into the category of nouns: Russian, military.

Morphological analysis of the adjective

Part of speech - an independent part of speech (indicates a feature of an object)

Initial form. Initial form The unit form of an adjective is considered. h., m.r., im. n. (blue).

Constant signs: category (qualitative adjective).

Non-permanent features: used in short/full (only for quality); degree of comparison (only for quality); number, gender, case (blue - pr. in full f., singular h, m. r., noun).

Syntactic role in a sentence.

Case endings of adjectives

Adjectives have endings similar to the endings of the question word what: in a good (how?) mood, about an interesting (what?) book, etc.

Possessive adjectives on - й, -я, - е, -ы (fox, fox, fox, fox) in all cases, except for the nominative and the similar accusative case of the masculine singular, are written with ь: rybachiy, rybachego, rybicheye, fisherman, fisherman, about fisherman; fishermen, fishermen, fishermen, fishermen, fishermen, about fishermen.

Note 1. Possessive adjectives are formed from nouns using the suffix -j- (iot), the indicator of which in indirect forms is the dividing b.

Note 2. Possessive adjectives ending in -й should be distinguished from adjectives of the beginning type: lying, combustible, in which ь is not written in indirect cases, since they do not have the suffix -j-; cf.: recumbent, recumbent, recumbent, recumbent, etc.

The adjectives suburban, interurban, suburban vary according to the fixed declension and are written with the endings -y, -aya, -oe, -e, etc.; The adjectives beskrayny, nonresident are modified according to the soft variety of declension and are written with the endings -й, -я, -е, -и, etc. The forms interurban and nonresident, beskrayny are outdated and are not currently recommended for use.

Adjectives ending in - yenny have a short form in the nominative singular masculine case in - yen: sultry - sultry, calm - calm, slender - slender.

You probably already remember that according to their meaning, adjectives are divided into quality(indicate the quality of the item), relative(denote the attribute of an object in relation to another object) and possessive. We will talk about possessive adjectives in more detail.

These adjectives, unlike qualitative and relative ones, answer not the question what?, but the question whose? They're called possessive, because their main purpose is indicate belonging to a person, animal or animate being. Therefore, they are formed only from the names of animals, persons and other animate beings. For example, mutton, fox, Anin, mother's, foreman, grandfather's etc. According to grammatical features, possessive adjectives closer to relative because they have no degrees of comparison(can't be this item is my mother’s, and that one is even more my mother’s), short forms, They do not form adverbs and abstract nouns etc. However, they have their own characteristics: special suffixes and a special system of declensions.

We will not consider the system of declensions here; we will focus only on word formation.

Possessive adjectives are formed, as mentioned above, from the names of animals, persons and other animate beings using suffixes -ov (-ev), -in (-yn), -iy.

Fathers' house, elders' staff, nanny's scarf, sister's order, fox's tail.

It should also be noted here that these adjectives have null ending. Try not to confuse, for example, adjectives like blue And wolfish

Blue – qualitative adjective, non-derivative (not formed from anything), without suffixes, ending -y.

Wolf – possessive adjective, derivative (derived from the noun wolf using a suffix -th ), null ending.

Pairs of adjectives such as worker and carpenter, red and bear, distant and shark. Worker, red and distant have ending-yy, A carpenter, bear and shark have null ending And suffix-yy, because they are possessive and derivative.

Therefore, you should be careful when analyzing adjectives by composition and take into account the rank of the adjective by meaning.

Now let's move on to traps, which adjectives prepare for us. Although there is a rather sharp boundary between the categories of adjectives ative adjectives both grammatically and lexically, however, it happens that some possessive adjectives camouflage under qualitative and even relative, and relative under qualitative. All in all, Many adjectives want to move into the category of quality. How does this happen and how not to get confused when determining the category?

Remember that the rank of an adjective by meaning can only be accurately determined in context, i.e. in a phrase or in a sentence.

For example, cherry compote – compote of cherries. Having made the transformation, we understand what is in front of us relative adjectivenew, because denotes what the compote is made from. But in the phrase cherry suit adjective cherry no longer means that the suit is made of cherries, it means the color of the suit, and color is a quality characteristic, i.e. in this context the adjective becomes high quality.

Let's take a few more examples.

Iron constructor– constructor made of iron ( relative adjective)
Iron will– strong will ( quality adjective)
Iron health- good health ( quality adjective)

Steel knife– steel knife ( relative adjective)
Steel color dress (quality adjective)
Steely gaze– unfriendly, cold, hard ( quality adjective)

Bear fur– wool that belongs to a bear ( possessive adjective)
The owner's bear coat- bear fur coat ( relative adjective)
Bear walk– clumsy, awkward, shambling ( quality adjective)

Fox face- a muzzle that belongs to a fox ( possessive adjective)
Fox hat- fox hat ( relative adjective)
Fox trick– very developed cunning ( quality adjective)

Thus we see that the same adjective can take on different meanings. However grammatical characteristics remain unchanged: neither possessive nor relative adjectives will acquire degrees of comparison, short forms and others distinctive features quality adjectives.

Let's summarize.

To determine the category of an adjective, you need:

1) See, the adjective is used in direct or figurative meaning. If the meaning is figurative, it is qualitative adjective.

2) If the value is direct, ask two questions: Which? whose? If this adjective indicates belonging, in front of us - possessive adjective.

3) Try to substitute adverb of measure and degree (very) or form degrees of comparison. If it works - qualitative adjective.

4) Try it convert combination with an adjective into a prepositional-case phrase. Happened - relative adjective.

And remember that The main thing is still the lexical meaning, not the grammar. Grammar just helps us.

Good luck in learning Russian and excellent grades!

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Learning adjectives, as a rule, does not cause any particular problems for schoolchildren and students.

It is not difficult to recognize an adjective in a text and identify its grammatical features, but to do this you need to know what part of speech it is.

An adjective is a part of speech that denotes a characteristic of an object and answers the questions: Which? Whose?

For example: beautiful, good, spring, metallic, fox, mother's .

Adjectives are divided into three categories (qualitative, relative, possessive). They change by numbers and cases (declined) and by gender. They can have a full or short form, degrees of comparison.

An adjective can be any member of a sentence, but most often it acts as a modifier or a nominal part of a compound nominal predicate.

By definition, an adjective denotes a characteristic, but the meaning and nature of this characteristic can be very different. So, an adjective can mean:

- item size ( big, miniature, huge );

- position, shape of an object ( tall, crooked );

— physical properties (warm, frosty, hard );

- characteristics of a person or another person ( old, kind, brave );

- color ( white, pink );

- attitude towards something (someone) ( English, children's, student );

- material ( textile, glass ) etc.

Let's imagine that the language has . How many shades of meaning would be lost in such a situation!

Let's say the word book simply means an object, a certain number of pages with printed text. Let's substitute several adjectives for this word and get:

— an interesting book, a funny book, an old book, a new book, a forgotten book, a well-read book, a children's book...

Many new meanings, meanings, shades have appeared. We need adjectives to more accurately express our thoughts, to make speech more diverse, imaginative, and intelligible.

It is no coincidence that the Russian language, one of the richest on Earth, has a huge number of adjectives - over 12,000!

All adjectives are divided into three large groups (categories): qualitative, relative and possessive. Words belonging to the same category. Have common component meanings and general grammatical features. Let's look at the categories of adjectives in more detail.

Qualitative adjectives - express a characteristic that can be manifested to a greater or lesser extent. Qualitative adjectives answer the question “Which?” and can indicate a variety of characteristics of an object: color, size, weight, smell, taste, internal quality creatures, age, etc.

Qualitative adjectives have the following grammatical features:

- they can have a full or short form ( young-young, young, young );

- have degrees of comparison ( young - younger, youngest, youngest of all );

- can form adverbs ( young - young ) and nouns with an abstract meaning ( young-youth );

- can be combined with the words very, most ( very young, the youngest );

- you can select synonyms and antonyms for a qualitative adjective ( young - young, young - old ).

Relative adjectives express a characteristic that is not manifested to a greater or lesser extent and expresses an attitude towards the material ( wood ), time ( winter ), territories ( river ), action ( washing ), face ( female ), number ( double ).

Relative adjectives do not have comparative forms and short forms; they answer the question “Which?”

Possessive adjectives express the belonging of an object to a person and answer the question “Whose?” Examples: wolfish, papa, fathers, bearish .

Due to the metaphorical nature of language, a phenomenon called the transition of adjectives from category to category is often observed. For example:

Iron part (relative value) – iron will (qualitative value);

Zephyr (qualitative value) – light industry (relative value);

Hare sheepskin coat (possessive meaning) – hare character (qualitative value);

It is usually not difficult to determine that this is an adjective. Any schoolchild understands that words long, wide, sweet, ceramic, raven – adjectives.

But there are also more complex cases - for example, a limited group of unchangeable adjectives that do not have endings characteristic of this part of speech.