Soft-n adjectives in Russian

[Paul B. Gallagher]

John Dingley wrote:

> The softness of карий is a bit of a mystery. As far as I can see, it
> is the only n-less soft adjective and, to muddy the waters, it was
> usually hard in Old Russian.

There are plenty of soft adjectives in -чий, generally (all?) old East 
Slavic participles corresponding to South Slavic -щий: горячий, сыпучий, 
etc. These decline according to the soft pattern even though there's no 
contrasting hard consonant: горячего, о горячем.

And of course the whole velar class, which were originally hard but are 
now nondistinctively soft in forms where -ы- has been replaced by -и-. 
These decline according to the hard pattern (тихого, о тихом), so I 
wouldn't really count these as "soft."

-- 
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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