The adjective answers the question “what?”, As well as “which?”, “Which?”, “Which?”, “Whose?” and is an independent part of speech. In our language, adjectives can vary by case, number and gender, and also have a short and complete form. In a sentence, this part of speech usually acts as a definition or, less commonly, a predicate.
Adjective ranks
Lexico-grammatical categories of adjectives are the only morphological feature of this part of speech that remains unchanged. Traditionally, according to grammatical characteristics and meaning, adjectives are divided into three categories: relative, possessive, and qualitative. However, this is not the only classification that modern linguistics provides. So, in Russian Grammar, published in 1980, two types of classifications of adjectives are proposed: the first is based on the nature of an attribute called an adjective; the second is on the character designation of the sign.
Classifications
According to the first version of the classification, lexical and grammatical categories of adjectives are divided into two types: relative and qualitative. In this case, the relative are divided into pronominal, ordinal and relative, which can be possessive and non-possessive.
According to the second classification, adjectives are divided into pronouns and significant. Then the significant are divided into relative and qualitative, and the relative are divided into ordinal and actually relative, which are possessive and non-possessive.
As for the school curriculum, it presents a classification according to which three categories are distinguished: possessive, relative, and qualitative. In this article we will give a detailed explanation of this particular classification, including an additional ordinal rank.
Quality adjectives
A high-quality adjective is a member of a sentence that indicates signs of objects that appear to a lesser or greater extent.
Their lexical meaning is very diverse and can mean:
- properties of objects: sweet, elastic, long and so on .;
- color: pink, faded, dull, etc.
- physical characteristics of living things: young, low, stately, thin, etc .;
- personality traits and spiritual qualities: cute, strict, angry, honest, touchy, etc.
In addition, quality adjectives can sometimes form antonymical pairs. For example, wide - narrow, low - high, evil - kind, etc.
Education
A high-quality adjective is an adjective formed according to its own laws:
- Using suffixes: -iv, -chiv, -ov, -liv, -ast, -ist. For example: playful, silver, playful.
- Forms reflecting a subjective assessment are formed: darkish, white, kind, light.
In addition, from such adjectives may form:
- Distracted nouns using suffixes: -iz (a), -is, -ost, -from (a). For example: fresh - freshness, white - whiteness, deaf - deafness, strict - severity.
- Adverbs ending in -e, -o, -i. For example: fresh - fresh, beautiful - beautiful, brutal - brutally.
Grammatical properties
Some lexico-grammatical categories of adjectives have their own grammatical features. In particular, quality adjectives:
- have a degree of comparison: beautiful - worse, more terrible (comparative degree); the worst, most terrible, most terrible (superlative) ;
- combined with such adverbs as: very, extremely, very, etc .;
- the forms of adjectives can be short and complete, however, this grammatical feature is peculiar only to high-quality adjectives.
It is with these grammatical features that qualitative adjectives differ from other categories of adjectives.
Relative adjectives
We continue to consider the lexical and grammatical categories of adjectives. Next in turn are relative adjectives, characterized by the fact that they serve to indicate the attributes of an object by indicating its relation to an animal, person, action, another object, number, time, action.
For example: children's table - a table for children; metal fork - a metal fork; tomorrow is the day that will be tomorrow; northern village - a village in the North and so on.
Relative adjectives lack grammatical features characteristic of qualitative ones. However, relative ones have their own characteristics, by which they are quite easy to distinguish from adjectives of other categories. So, they have synonyms among nouns: city street - city street, school building - school building.
Possessive adjectives
The lexico-grammatical categories of adjectives include, according to the school classification, and possessive. This is the name of adjectives that express the attributes of objects by naming objects to their owners, which can be both a person and an animal. Similar adjectives are formed by adding the suffixes -inn, -in, -ov, -ev, -sk, -y, -insk, -evsk / -ovsk.
Possessive pronouns are divided into a number of groups.
I group
Regardless of the category, the adjective answers the question “what, what, what”, therefore this parameter is useless in determining the category of this part of speech. However, there are other symptoms, most of which are outlined in this article. As for the groups of possessive adjectives, they stand out depending on the suffixes. So, we will consider group I.
Adjectives in this group are called adjectives. They are formed using the suffixes -nin, -in, -ev, -ov. For example: dad, grandfathers, sisters. They are used exclusively in the nominative case, in short form and have a special declension.
Similar adjectives are formed by joining to the base of nouns, which are called animals and persons of the above suffixes. Today they are used very rarely. Instead, they use the genitive case of nouns. For example: sister’s coat, brother’s briefcase.
II group
In order to quickly determine the lexical and grammatical categories of adjectives, it is necessary to learn the rules presented here. Here is another one of them.
The 2nd group includes possessive adjectives with the suffixes 1st. For example: wolf, fox. They denote not individual affiliation, but generic. Adjectives from nouns called animals and faces are formed. For example: a wolf pack, a bird's hubbub, girlish pride. In some textbooks, such adjectives are classified as relatively possessive (more on this category is described below).
A number of adjectives with similar suffixes are used in a figurative sense and are part of stable combinations. For example: a bear service, a bear walk, a wolf's appetite.
III group
The third group includes full forms of adjectives that indicate that a thing belongs to a certain person. They are formed using the suffixes -ovsk, -sk, -insk. For example: Pushkin's story, Chekhov's drama, Yesenin's poetry.
A number of linguists believe that adjectives that were formed from the names of settlements and serve to indicate belonging to them can also be attributed to this group. For example: Moscow factory, Oryol Square. However, this is contrary to logic, as possessive adjectives indicate that an thing belongs to an animate being. But adjectives that designate the attributes of a thing by its belonging to another subject are called relative. Therefore, the phrases “city park”, “evening newspaper” and “Leningradskaya street” will indicate the relativity of adjectives.
Lexico-grammatical categories of adjectives: table
Discharge | Value | Examples |
Quality | Item Feature (General) | Beautiful morning |
Characteristics of objects by weight, size, smell and so on. | Big house, heavy box |
Characterization of living beings and people | Faithful dog, trusted friend |
Relative | Material the item was made of | Metal board, wooden house |
Purpose of a thing | School bag |
The ratio of the subject to the quantity, place, time, etc. | Morning newspaper, evening train |
Possessive | Belonging a thing to a person | Daddy's machine, Dimina book |
Animal Affiliation | Bear tail, cleft paw |
In school courses of the Russian language, lexical and grammatical categories of adjectives are briefly presented in this table.
Ordinal Adjectives
Adjectives of this category designate the attributes of an object through its relation to quantity and number. They are formed from numerals denoting quantity. Example: five - fifth, eighty seven - eighty-seventh. A distinctive feature of the formation of ordinal adjectives is that in composite constructions only the second part of the phrase changes. For example, in one thousand eight hundred and fifty-second (year).
Permeability of lexical and grammatical categories of adjectives
The same adjective can belong to different categories. This phenomenon is called permeability. Consider the main types of adjectives, which may belong to different categories.
- Qualitative-relative - relative adjectives acquiring qualitative meanings. For example: a golden spoon (a spoon made of gold) - golden hands (characterizes a skilled person).
- Relative-quality - quality adjectives, which have developed an additional relative meaning. For example: deaf person (denotes quality) - deaf sound (relative value denoting a phonetic sign).
- Qualitative-possessive - possessive adjectives that act as qualitative ones. For example: wolf den (belongs to the wolf) - wolf custom (cruel rules, qualitative value).
- Relative-possessive - possessive adjectives that are used in the role of relative. For example: bear's den - a bear's fur coat.
- Possessive-relative are adjectives formed by the suffix -sk, used in relative meaning. For example: Yesenin verses - Yesenin readings.
These are the main lexical and grammatical categories of adjectives.