Meaning of relative adjectives. Possessive adjectives and traps when determining the category of adjectives. Full and short qualitative adjectives

Surely all schoolchildren know what an adjective is. But many adults will most likely find it difficult to answer such a question. Over time, even basic things are forgotten. In which school classes are adjectives studied in detail? 4th grade, 5th, 6th... How long ago it was! We invite you to go back to the distant years and refresh your memory.

Independent part of speech

In Russian, it answers the questions “what”, “which”, “which”, “what”, “whose”, “whose”, “whose”, “whose” and denotes the attribute of an object. It changes according to numbers, genders, cases, and can have a short form. Most often in sentences it acts as a definition, but it can also act as a predicate.

Rank

The adjective like has only one constant morphological feature - it is a category. There are qualitative, possessive, relative linguistic units. Let's talk about each category in more detail.

Qualitative adjectives

Words of this category answer the questions “what”, “which”, “which”, “which” and denote a characteristic that can be present to a lesser or greater extent. Qualitative adjectives, as a rule, go well with the adverbs “too”, “very” and their synonyms, for example, too beautiful, very big, extremely smart.

From such words, by repetition, you can form a complex adjective, for example, big-big, tasty-delicious. You can also attach the prefix non- to the word and get a single-root adjective, for example, ugly, not stupid. Typically, high-quality structural linguistic units have antonyms (high - low), and in some cases also hypernyms (big - huge). It should be noted that not all words meet the listed characteristics; there are also those that do not meet these criteria.

Word forms

The peculiarity of qualitative adjectives is that many of them have full and short forms, for example, smart - smart, tasty - tasty. At the same time, the short form is not declined at all, but the full form is declined according to cases, genders, and numbers. Often in sentences, short adjectives serve as predicates, and long adjectives serve as modifiers. Some words do not have a short form at all, for example, amiable, friendly, while others do not have a full form, for example, much, necessary, must, glad.

Degrees of comparison

The story about what an adjective is would not be complete without touching upon such a characteristic of this part of speech as the degree of comparison. The sign is inherent only in high-quality linguistic units. There are three degrees of comparison:

1) positive, indicating that an object or group of objects has some characteristic, for example, a beautiful flower;

2) comparative, meaning that one or another characteristic of one object or group of objects is expressed more significantly than that of another (others), for example, a wolf is larger than a hare, or of the same object (the same objects), but already in other times, for example, in the future I will be smarter;

3) excellent, meaning that an object or set of objects has some attribute to a greater extent than all other objects from the same group, for example, the best doctor in the hospital, the strongest player on the team.

You can form an adjective in the comparative degree by using additional words, for example: the most beautiful, taller. In this case, the part of speech takes on a composite, or, as they also say, analytical form. When expressed in only one word, the form is called simple, or synthetic. It should be emphasized that not all adjectives can have comparative and superlative degrees. Words that are not qualitative in nature do not have such characteristics.

Relative adjectives

These are linguistic units that answer the questions “whose”, “whose”, “whose”, “whose” and denote a characteristic that cannot be possessed to a lesser or greater extent. They express the relationship of an object to another object, to a property (washing powder), to a material (glass vase), to a place (Moscow courtyard), to time (October day), to a unit of measurement (a three-story house, a seven-year-old child, a kilogram bag), and so on. further. Such adjectives cannot be combined with the adverbs “too”, “very” and their synonyms, and do not have a short form or degrees of comparison. They also have no antonyms.

Possessive adjectives

These words answer the questions “whose”, “whose”, “whose”, “whose”, and indicate that a certain object belongs to a person or living creature, for example, sister, father, fox. These linguistic units, as in the previous case, do not have degrees of comparison, antonyms, short forms, and are not combined with the adverbs “too”, “very” and their synonyms.

Digit boundaries

Talking about what an adjective is, it is worth noting one feature. The fact is that the lexical and grammatical boundaries of words in this part of speech are very flexible, so it is sometimes difficult to correctly determine the category. Thus, possessive, relative adjectives can easily take on a qualitative meaning. For example, in the phrase “dog's paw” the word “dog” will be a possessive adjective, in the phrase “pack of dogs” it will be a relative adjective, and in the phrase “a dog’s life” it will be a qualitative adjective.

Declension types

Words related to the part of speech we are considering can be inflected by cases, numbers, and in the singular also by gender. This does not apply to comparative adjectives and short adjectives that are not inflected. There are also a certain number of undecidable words, for example, beige jackets.

The case, number, and gender of adjectives depend on the same characteristics of the nouns with which they agree. Depending on the stem, there are three declension options:

• solid: ;
• soft: winter, winter, winter;
• mixed: bad, bad, bad.

Word formation

An adjective as a part of speech can be formed in different ways:

• prefix: joyful - joyless;
• suffixal: swamp - marshy;
• prefix-suffixal: earth - underground;
• by combining two bases: three colors - tricolor, pale and pink - pale pink;
• complex suffix: flax + seed + cleaning - flax seed cleaning.

Morphological analysis

At school, during Russian language lessons, teachers quite often give children tasks to make related to one or another part of speech. How to parse an adjective? To do this, you need to determine the following characteristics of the language unit:

Transition to other parts of speech

Participles and pronouns often become adjectives. For example, he is not much of a musician. In turn, adjectives can be substantivized into the category of nouns, for example, military, Russian.

Features of this part of speech in other languages

We hope that thanks to the article you were able to remember what an adjective is. It is worth saying that not all the characteristics inherent in this part of speech in the Russian language will occur in other linguistic systems. For example, adjectives in English do not change according to numbers and cases; in French, they do not change according to cases, but they change according to numbers. In Japanese, adjectives are generally unchangeable; they have tenses and determine politeness of speech. In Portuguese and Spanish, many adjectives have a common form for both masculine and feminine genders, while others vary according to gender and number. Everything is so difficult with this part of speech!

Now you can tell everything about the adjective. Of course, we did not consider all the characteristics of this part of speech, but touched only on the main features. But for general development this is quite enough.

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 the absolute attribute of an object, which is unchanging, constant: deaf, lame, married, on foot, 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. The comparative degree indicates a characteristic that a given object has to a greater or lesser extent. The 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 will be 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.

The gender, case and number of an adjective depend on the corresponding characteristics of the 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, masculine and 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 forever glorify ordinary people, to whom I would pour stars into medals for their victories” (V. Sysoev).

Masculine adjectives on -ой are inflected in the same way as na -y, but always have a stressed ending: gray, moloʹboy — gray, moloʹgo — gray, moloʹmogo — 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. The initial form of an adjective is considered to be the unit form. 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, intercity, 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 - en: sultry - sultry, calm - calm, slender - slender.

Adjective - is an independent significant part of speech, combining words that

1) indicate the attribute of an object and answer questions which one?, whose?;

2) they 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 based on meaning:qualitative, relative, possessive.

Quality adjectives denote quality, property of an object: its size (small ), shape (round ), color (white ), physical characteristics (warm ) , as well as the propensity of the subject to perform an action (barbed ).

Relative adjectives denote the attribute of an object through the relationship of this object to another object (book ), action (reading ) or other sign (yesterday's ). Relative adjectives are formed from nouns, verbs and adverbs; The most common suffixes for relative adjectives are the suffixes -n - ( forest ), - ov - ( hedgehog ), - in - ( poplar-in-y ), - sk - ( warehouse ), - l - ( fluent ).

Possessives adjectives denote that an object belongs to a person or animal and are formed from nouns by suffixes -in - ( mom-in ), - ov - ( fathers ), - th - ( fox ). These suffixes come at the end of the adjective stem (cf. possessive adjectivefathers and relative adjectivepaternal ).

Quality adjectives differ from relative and possessive 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 (quiet - loud );

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 (strictness ) and adverbs starting with -o (strictly ), as well as adjectives with a subjective assessment suffix (blue, angry) ;

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 funny ).

Declension of adjectives

Adjectives of all categories have inconstant signs of gender (in the singular), number and case, in which they agree with the noun. Adjectives also agree with the noun in animation if the noun is in the V. plural form, and for the masculine gender - singular (cf.: I seebeautiful shoes and I see beautiful girls ).

Changing an adjective by gender, number and case is called declension of adjectives.

Qualitative adjectives in the short form are not declined (expressions on bare feet, in broad daylight are phraseological and do not reflect the modern state of the language), as well as qualitative adjectives in the simple comparative and the compound superlative degree built on its basis (above, above all) .

In Russian there areindeclinable adjectives , which mean:

1) colors:beige , khaki , Marengo , electrician ;

2) nationalities and languages:Khanty , Mansi , Urdu ;

3) clothing styles:pleated , corrugation , bell-bottom , mini .

Fixed adjectives are also words (weight)gross , net , (hour)peak .

Their grammatical features are their invariability, adjoining to a noun, location after, and not before, the noun. The immutability of these adjectives is their constant feature.

Degrees of comparison of adjectives

Qualitative adjectives have an inconsistent morphological feature of degrees of comparison.

School grammar indicates that there are two degrees of comparison -comparative and superlative .

Comparative degree of the adjective indicates that the characteristic is manifested to a greater/lesser extent in a given object compared to another object (Vanya is taller than Kolya; This river is deeper than the other ) or the same item in other circumstances (Vanya is taller than he was last year; The river is deeper in this place than in that one ).

There is a comparative degreesimple and compound .

Simple comparative degree denotes a greater degree of manifestation of a characteristic and is formed from the base of adjectives with the help of suffixes -her(s), -e, -she/-same ( faster, higher, earlier, deeper ).

The simple form of the comparative degree of some adjectives is formed from another stem:pl O hoy - worse , good - better .

Sometimes, when forming a simple comparative degree, a prefix can be addedBy- ( newer ) .

The morphological features of the simple comparative degree are uncharacteristic of an adjective. This:

1) immutability,

2) the ability to control a noun,

3) use primarily as a predicate (He is taller than his father ). The position of definition can only be occupied by a simple comparative degree in a separate position (Much taller than the other students, he seemed almost an adult ) or in a non-isolated position with the prefix po- in the position after the noun (Buy me some fresh newspapers ).

Compound comparative degree denotes both a greater and lesser degree of manifestation of a characteristic and is formed as follows:

element more/less + adjective (more / less high ).

The difference between a compound comparative degree and a simple one is as follows:

1) the compound comparative degree is broader in meaning, since it denotes not only a greater, but also a lesser degree of manifestation of a characteristic;

2) the compound comparative degree changes in the same way as the positive degree of comparison (original form), i.e. according to gender, number and cases, and can also be in a short form (more handsome );

3) a compound comparative degree can be either a predicate or a non-isolated and isolated definition (Less interesting article was presented V this magazine . This article is less interesting than the previous one. )

Excellent the degree of comparison indicates the greatest/smallest degree of manifestation of the trait (the highest mountain) or a very large/small degree of manifestation of the trait (the kindest person).

The superlative degree of comparison, like the comparative, can be simple or compound.

Simple superlative adjective comparison denotes the greatest degree of manifestation of a characteristic and is formed from the base of the adjective with the help of suffixes -eish- / -aysh- (after k, r, x, causing alternation):kind-eysh-y, high-yish-yy.

When forming a simple superlative degree of comparison, the prefix can be usednai -: kindest .

The morphological features of the simple superlative degree of comparison of adjectives are the same as those of the adjective, i.e. variability by gender, number, case, use of the attribute and predicate in the syntactic function. The simple superlative degree of comparison of an adjective does not have a short form.

Compound superlative adjectives denotes both the greatest and the least degree of manifestation of a characteristic and is formed in three ways:

1) adding a wordmost the smartest );

2) adding a wordmost/least to the initial form of the adjective (most/least smart );

3) adding a wordeveryone ortotal to the comparative degree (He was smarter than everyone ).

The forms of the compound superlative degree, formed in the first and second ways, have morphological features characteristic of adjectives, i.e. they change by gender, number and case, and can have a short form (most convenient ), act both as a definition and as a nominal part of the predicate. Forms of the compound superlative degree, formed in the third way, are unchangeable and act primarily as the nominal part of the predicate.

Not all qualitative adjectives have forms of degrees of comparison, and the absence of simple forms of degrees of comparison is observed more often than the absence of compound forms.

Completeness/brevity of adjectives

Qualitative adjectives have a full and a short form.

The short form is formed by adding positive degree endings to the stem: null ending for the masculine gender, -A for women, -O / -e for average, -s / -And for plural (deep , deepA , deepO , deepAnd ) .

A short form cannot be formed from qualitative adjectives that:

1) have suffixes characteristic of relative adjectives -sk-, -ov-/-ev-, -n- : brown , coffee , brotherly ;

2) indicate the colors of animals:brown , black ;

3) have suffixes of subjective assessment:tall , blue .

The short form has grammatical differences from the full form: it does not change by case, in a sentence it acts primarily as a nominal part of the predicate; the short form acts as a definition only in a separate syntactic position (Angry at the whole world, he almost stopped leaving the house).

In the position of the predicate, the meaning of the full and short forms usually coincides, but for some adjectives the following semantic differences are possible between them:

1) the short form denotes excessive manifestation of a trait with a negative assessment, cf..: skirt short - skirt short ;

2) the short form denotes a temporary sign, the long form - permanent, cf.:child sick - child sick .

There are such qualitative adjectives that have only a short form:glad , much , must .

Transition of adjectives from category to category

It is possible for an adjective to have several meanings belonging to different categories. In school grammar this is called “the transition of an adjective from category to category.” Thus, a relative adjective can develop a meaning characteristic of qualitative ones (for example:iron detail (relative) -iron will (qual.) - metaphorical transfer). Possessives may have meanings characteristic of relative and qualitative (for example:foxhole (possessive)- fox cap (relative) -fox habits (quality).

Morphological analysis of the adjective

Morphological analysis of the adjective is carried out according to the following plan:

I. Part of speech. General meaning. Initial form (nominative singular masculine).

An example of morphological analysis of an adjective.

And indeed, she was beautiful: tall, thin, black eyes, like those of a mountain chamois, and looked into your soul (M. Yu. Lermontov).

1. Good (what?) - adjective,

initial form is good.

2. Constant signs: high-quality, brief;

inconsistent signs: units. number, female genus.

3. She (was what?)good (part of the predicate).