Without adjectives, our language would be inexpressive and unemotional. It is this part of speech that is responsible for ensuring that the named objects, faces, and phenomena acquire a detailed characterization, colors, and awaken the imagination.
Adjective Features
In the text, adjectives are most closely related to the noun and the pronoun. This is the secret of how to determine the case of an adjective.
Recall some grammatical characteristics of this part of speech. It is in excellent agreement with other groups of words and therefore easily changes both the case, gender and number. The cases of adjectives are always exactly the same as those pronouns and nouns with which the adjective is consistent.
About cases
The Russian language knows six cases. By asking questions to them, we can mentally substitute our own verb for everyone. Each of the questions implies an animate object, about which one can say “someone”, and an inanimate object - “something”.
- Nominative case: (is) who? or what?
- Genitive: (no) whom? or what?
- Dative case: (give) to whom? or what?
- Accusative case: (blame) whom? or what?
- Punitive case: (done and satisfied) by whom? or what?
- Prepositional case: (think about, sure) whom? or what?
Case issues are clear to us. But how to determine the case of the adjective, if the question "what?" Rather than "what?" or who?"?
If the sentence consists only of adjectives ...
Adjectives, even if they are used in a sentence without a noun or pronoun, still apply to these words. Compare two tiny passages: "The severe February snowstorm was running out." / “February was running out. Harsh, blizzard. " In the second passage we see a sentence consisting of adjectives. However, we perceive them in the context of the previous sentence and understand that both adjectives refer to the noun “February”, as in the first passage. And with a noun we can easily determine the case on the question: what? - February, nominative n. Consequently, such are the cases of adjectives related to this noun.
Adjective Case Definition Scheme
Let's take another example: "There are no more fragrant and important peonies in the autumn garden, but the eye rejoices with luxurious asters and dahlias." Using the consistency of adjectives with nouns, we will not have difficulty in determining the case of the adjective in each case. We select the phrases “adjective + noun”, then ask the noun a question:
- In the autumn (what?) Garden is a matter of prepositional case.
- Fragrant and important (what?) Peonies - a matter of genitive.
- Luxurious (why?) Asters and dahlias are a matter of the dative case.
We can conclude that the adjective “autumn” is in the prepositional case, the words “fragrant and important” are in the genitive, and the word “luxurious” is in the dative case. According to the exact same scheme, one can indicate the case of adjectives in the sentence "The gentle chime of blue bells and the modest looks of touching daisies are the main signs of my village summer." Let us now pay attention to how the question that we ask the adjective in each case changes:
- (what?) of blue (what?) bells - a kind. P.;
- (what?) gentle (what?) chime - names. P.;
- (what?) modest (what?) views - names. P.;
- (what?) touching (what?) daisies - give birth. case.
It will help to consider the cases of adjectives in a table in which we present the same adjective in combination with a pronoun and a noun.
| I.p. | (what?) it, dress (what?) elegant | (who?) I, man (what?) is reasonable |
| R.p. | (what?) him, dress (what?) elegant | (whom?) me, human (what?) reasonable |
| D.p. | (what?) him, dress (what?) elegant | (to whom?) to me, to the person (which?) reasonable |
| V.p. | (what?) him, dress (what?) elegant | (whom?) me, human (what?) reasonable |
| T.p. | (what?) him, dress (what?) elegant | (by whom?) by me, by man (by what?) intelligent |
| P.p. | (about / in what?) about / in it, about / in a dress (what?) elegant | (about / in whom?) about / in me, about / in a person (what?) reasonable |
We can notice that for adjectives characterizing an animated object, the question sounds the same in the nominative and accusative cases, and for adjectives that relate to the animated object, the questions are similar in the genitive and accusative cases.
How not to confuse nominative and accusative cases
Nouns and adjectives in the accusative case describe objects that are supposed to be impacted by someone. Then in the sentence there is or is implied the source from which the action is directed. It can be expressed by words from the group of nouns and pronouns that are in the nominative case, as well as verbs. Examples: “Counselors allowed children to play (what?) Outdoor (what?) Outdoor games.” "He spoke of (what?) Distant (what?) Countries." “Do not shoot (at which?) Defenseless (at whom?) Birds.” “The athletes were created (what?) Excellent (what?) Conditions for training.”
Special cases of spelling of adjectives in different cases
Words that end in the singular in -i , and in the plural in -i (sheep - sheep), retain in the singular before the ending a soft sign in all cases, except the nominative and accusative:
- I. p. - sheep.
- R. p. - sheep.
- D. p. - sheep.
- V. p. - sheep.
- T. p. - sheep.
- P. p. - about / in sheep.
We found out how to determine the case of an adjective: from the case of the word to which this adjective refers. We also examined some difficult cases of spelling of adjectives in various case forms.