The adjective is an autosemantic part of speech that usually denotes a attribute (subject, person, thing) and is semantically and grammatically associated with a noun or pronoun whose meanings or characteristics the adjective specifies:
Because the word дом is the masculine gender, the adjectives have the endings -ый/-ий/- ой, because the word комната is feminine noun, the adjectives have the endings -ая/-яя, because the word море is neuter noun, the adjectives have the endings -ое/-ee.
Typically, adjectives make up nouns or pronouns of a congruence word combination, which means that one word is the so-called main and determines the grammatical categories of the second, subordinate, and therefore all grammatical categories of adjectives are dependent on categories of nouns or pronouns. Thus, the adjectives can be used to determine the grammatical gender (masculine, feminine, neuter), number (singular, plural), case, and also the category that applies only to adjectives and adverbs, - degrees of comparison (see chapter 8) We change in degrees of comparison only those adjectives that denotate impermanent characteristic, changing sign, and a quality that can be measured, e.g.: большой, толстый, высокий, тёмный, длинный – больше, толще, выше, темнее, длиннее..
The grammatical dependence of adjectives on the nouns is complete (see examples above), so the adjectives coincide with nouns by gender, numbers and case, only in plural, gender differences are wiped out, and for all adjectives only two endings are possible -ые/-ие: новые дома/комнаты/моря, большие дома/комнаты/моря, синие дома/комнаты/моря.
Contemporary Russian, apart from the group of declinable adjectives, also has indeclinable adjectives (in other terms - adjectives without morphological characteristics), these include words as бордо, хаки, беж, флэш (these are borrowed words).
Examples of the National Corpus of Russian Language:
From the derivation point of view, the adjective most often forms by suffix (стеклянный, деревянный, дождливый, детский), by prefix (ультрасовременный, антисанитарный, заполярный, прекрасный) or prefixal sufixal way of word formation (пришкольный, приморский, настольный). New adjectives are also created by composition (железнодорожный, русско-чешский, светло-коричневый), non-morphological combination of two words: подписавшиеся ниже лица = нижеподписавшиеся, указанный выше адрес = вышеуказанный, or so-called adjectivation (выдающиеся успехи, смеющиеся глаза).
From the syntactic point of view adjectives most often have the function of the attribute or the predicate.
According to its meaning, the adjective in Russian is divided into three lexico-grammatical classes (types):
Qualitative adjectives describe the quality of the subject, person or thing: the form and position (прямой, отвесный), sizes (низкий – высокий, большой – маленький, узкий – широкий), characteristics (сильный – слабый, холодный – горячий, сладкий – горький), character traits (злой – добрый, доверчивый – подозрительный), physiological and intellectual properties (больной – здоровый, молодой – старый, умный – глупый).
Because qualitative adjectives symptom may indicate that changes, that is not stable, we can change these adjectives in degrees of comparison, e.g.: высокий – выше (более/менее высокий) – самый высокий (высочайший/выше всех, выше всего). For details on adjectives see chapter 8.
Qualitative adjectives can have short forms, such as больно́й – бо́лен, молодо́й – мо́лод, у́мный – умён. For details on short and long shapes see chapter 7.
Qualitative adjectives together with adverbs очень, весьма, гораздо, чрезвычайно, совсем не, отнюдь не etc. may form a word combinations, e.g.: очень большой, весьма умный, гораздо сильнее, чрезвычайно интересный, отнюдь не глупый.
Relative adjectives denotate, unlike qualitative adjectives, constant quality, which does not change and can not therefore have degrees of comparison. This quality is denoted by the relationship of the subject(s) to other subjects, qualities, conditions, e.g.: студенческое общежитие (= "общежитие для студентов"), читальный зал (= "зал для чтения / где можно читать"), утренняя газета (= "газета, которая вышла / выходит утром").
Most relative adjectives are derived from nouns, which implies their meaning "to mark a quality through the relationship of a given subject (s) to other objects, qualities, states": морской порт (морской is derived from the word море by suffix -ск-), глазной врач, деревянный стол, серебряная посуда, пластиковое окно.
Relative adjectives have only a long form, i.e. морской, глазной, деревянный etc.
Possessive adjectives denote individual or gender affiliation, individual or gender sign, e.g.: Петин костюм, лисья норма, мамина сумка. Usually, these adjectives answer the question of who? whose? (cf. the qualitative and relative adjectives relate to the question of what?) and have their special indicators:
special suffixes -ов-, -ин-, -ий- (-j-): отцов, сестрин, лисий,
in the Nominative of the singular and the plural the possessive adjectives have the ending of short forms: отцовØ, сестринØ, лисийØ – отцова, сестрина, лисья, отцово, сестрино, лисье – отцовы, сестрины, лисьи.
Russian surnames with the element -ов-, -ин-/-ын- are originally possessive adjectives (Петров, Козлов, Вдовин, Курицын).
Forms with -ов-, -ин- compete in Russian with Genitive forms: отцовы ботинки – ботинки отца, мамина сумка – сумка мамы, Наташино пальто – пальто Наташи. Genitive possessive structures are used much more frequently in contemporary Russian than the forms of possessive adjectives, i.e. ботинки отца, сумка мамы, пальто Наташи.
The boundaries between the lexical-grammatical classes of adjectives are movable, which means that, as a result of semantic development or ambiguity, adjectives can move from one lexical grammar class to another, most often the relative adjective becomes a qualitative adjective, e.g.: золотое кольцо (= кольцо из золота, the relative adjective), золотые руки (= умелые руки, transferred meaning / the qualitative adjective), золотое сердце (= доброе, the qualitative adjective), золотые слова (= умные слова, the qualitative adjective).
Here is an example from the textbook of contemporary Russian language (Современный русский язык 2017, 60):
| The possessive adjective | The relative adjective | The qualitative adjective |
|---|---|---|
| медвежья лапа (берлога) | медвежья шуба (шапка) | медвежья походка, медвежья услуга, лисий характер, рыбья кровь, заячья храбрость и т. д. |
| (= «принадлежит медведю») | (= «не принадлежит медведю, а сделана из медведя») | |
| лисий хвост (лисья нора) | лисья шуба (лисий воротник) |