How to determine a qualitative relatively possessive adjective. Relative adjective

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. In Russian, middle school students already 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? –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 a whole range of 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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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.

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 other distinctive features of qualitative 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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Adjective- this is a class of words that denotes a characteristic, and this characteristic is thought of in relation to an object. Moreover, this feature can be permanent, passive or temporary, but to all of them you can ask the question “which?”, which reflects everything common in semantics adjective. Because adjective denotes a dependent feature, it has concordant categories of gender, number and case, which predetermine the corresponding categories of nouns.
In a sentence adjective acts primarily as an agreed upon definition.
Depending on the meaning and grammatical form adjectives are divided into quality And relative. They occupy a special place (for more details, see translation agency).

Qualitative adjectives

Qualitative adjectives denote a sign that is perceived directly. Qualitative adjectives have a number of grammatical properties:

have a full and short form;

have degrees of comparison;

from qualitative adjectives abstract nouns can be formed: "youth";

from the base qualitative adjectives With the help of subjective assessment suffixes, derivatives can be formed: "little red";

to some qualitative adjective You can choose antonyms: "kind angry".

Relative adjectives denote signs, properties, qualities that are formed indirectly, through relationships with objects or phenomena. Relative adjectives can only have derived bases. Relative adjectives, usually denote:

relation to material, substance: "wooden house";

relation to time: "March day";

relation to place: "Indian costume"

Relative adjectives do not have a short form.
Between quality And relative adjectives there is no hard limit. Relative adjectives often appear in meaning quality: "iron will". Meaning adjective with such a transition it is metaphorized. Relative adjectives, moving to quality, do not acquire quality properties, although in literary texts this rule is often violated to create more vivid and unusual images.
Qualitative adjectives can also act in the meaning of relative, this usually occurs when terminology of phrases: "non-ferrous metallurgy".

Possessive adjectives

Possessive adjectives express a sign of belonging to a person or another living being. The basis possessive adjectives always derivative. Such adjectives using suffixes: -ov- ("grandfathers"), -ev- ("Sergeev"), -in- ("father's"), -iy- ("bird's"). Possessive adjectives do not have short forms or degrees of comparison. Possessive adjectives very often turn into relative And quality, this happens especially often with possessive adjectives concerning animals: “wolf’s lair” (possessive), “wolf skin” (relative), “wolf’s appetite” (qualitative).

Declension of adjectives

Adjectives change by gender, number and case, these categories are concordant with the corresponding nouns. Release solid ("red"), soft ("blue") and mixed (back-lingual: "long") Declension options adjectives depending on the basis.

Relative - express a characteristic through an attitude to something.

Maternal care (attitude to person)

Book trade (for inanimate objects)

Double strike (to number)

Gold ring (to material)

University buffet (local)

Yesterday's newspapers (by time), etc.

A grammatical feature of relative adjectives can be considered the absence of features of qualitative adjectives.

Some of the listed features of qualitative adjectives are found in relative adjectives, but only in occasional use. “More and more difficult, more and more stony steps” (Bryusov).

Possessive - express a characteristic through an attitude, but there is only one attitude!!! (belong to ONE person) – the relation of belonging to a person, an animal.

Mom's care

Fathers suit

Grandfather's story

Sister's handkerchief

Foxy burrow

Such adjectives have special suffixes: -ov-, -ev-, -em-, -in-(-yn-)/-nin-, -j- (-й, -я, -ь, -ь) (fox ).

Grammatical property (basic) - a special type of declension - short type of declension / possessive type of declension, adjective. The differences between types of adjective declensions are gradually disappearing. In forms. R. and many more including possessive adjectives.

Short type of declination

The main difference in I. p is that they coincide with the endings of nouns. Suffixes: -ov-, -ev-.

Fathers - father, father, fathers, father, father (obsolete about father).

Mom's - mom's, mom's, mom's, mom's, mom's.

Fox - fox, fox, fox, fox, fox.

The boundaries between sections are quite fluid. Relative adjectives, acquiring a figurative meaning, easily turn into qualitative ones: sunny day (relative), sunny smile (qual.), crocodile tears (qual.).

Declension of adjectives

Based on declension, adjectives are divided into three types:

1) qualitative and relative with m.r. endings. , I. p., units h. - -th (s), -oh (scarlet, blue, summer, earthly). Three subtypes: hard and soft and mixed (g,k,x).

2) possessive-relative adjectives with the suffix –й (-j-) and a zero ending in the I. p. unit. h.m.r. (bird, wolf, fox, goat). They have short form endings in I. p. and V. p. of both numbers. In all other cases singular. h. and pl. h. They have endings of the soft type of declination. In I.p.m.r. they have zero endings (wolf-ii-O), in w. R. –i (wolf-j-a), on average –e (wolf-j-e), and in plural. h. –i (wolf-j-i).

3) proper possessive adjectives with suffixes –ov, -in and zero endings in the I. p. unit. h.m.r. have the endings of nouns not only in I. p. and V. p. of both numbers, but also in R. p. and D. p. units. including masculine and neuter.

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