Soft-n adjectives in Russian

[Robert Channon]

*And if semantics is the motivating factor, then how to we explain синий?*



All the other n' adjectives (other than синий and the possessives in -j-)
have *the suffix n'*, whereas in синий the n' belongs to the root and there
is no suffix.  That's the way in which синий stands apart from the other n'
adjectives, not because of semantics.  (*Morphology to the rescue!*)  And
then there is a very small number (count 'em on one hand) of other
unsuffixed soft adjectives that have some other consonant at the end of the
stem.  Синий really goes with them, and not with the suffixed ones
originally mentioned; it's just an accident that the root of синий ends in
n' that is like the suffix.



The possessives in -j- (бараний, вороний, etc.) stand apart not only
because they have a different suffix, but also because they have a
different declension, not the "canonical" soft adjective declension.  So
they are really "faux soft-n adjectives".



Also, morphemes carry meaning, so I agree that it's not surprising that a
suffix has a semantic meaning along with a grammatical one (even if only in
most if not all words), and there are plenty of instances of that in
Russian and other languages.  There are also some instances of the soft-n
suffix which don't seem to carry the "expected" meaning: искренний,
сыновний, мужний/замужний, пустопорожний, and a few others.


On Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 1:20 PM, Alina Israeli <aisrael at american.edu> wrote:

> I would agree with Jules that we find plenty of examples where semantics
> influence morphology.
>
> Looking at the list of -ний adjectives, what strikes me is that the vast
> majority are possessives: бараний, мужний, олений, тюлений etc. So the
> adjectives Rich listed could be described as 'pertaining to X': летний --
> pertaining to лето etc. -j- was a nice possessive suffix (which shows up so
> beautifully in Ярославль).
>
> As for синий, it would be nice to know what came first, the chicken or the
> egg, or rather синий or синь. We do have other historic nouns that became
> numerals, for example. So we very well could have a noun here first.
> Historian of the language could answer this question.
>
> Alina
>
> On Dec 5, 2012, at 12:49 PM, Jules Levin wrote:
>
>  On 12/5/2012 7:19 AM, Richard Robin wrote:
>
> *Hello, SEELANGS linguists!
>
> This is pure curiosity -- probably something they taught me in grad school
> when I wasn't paying attention. With the exception of последний and синий,
> all of the soft-н adjectives that I can think of are either are formed from
> basic spacial words (верхний, средний, нижний, передний, задний, дальний,
> ближний) and from the temporal adverbs formed from instrumentals -- like
> утренний and летний. But why? It's rather rare in Russian (and I assume in
> the other Slavic languages) for purely semantic categories to influence
> morphology. Why does it appear to be happening here? And if semantics is
> the motivating factor, then how to we explain синий? (I suppose последний
> could be viewed spacially.) Any ideas?*
>
>
> Well, in Lithuanian both types are motivated: -inis, -inas...
> No one can truly understand what is going on in Slavic without taking a
> look at the Baltic languages, especially of course Lithuanian.  But I would
> dispute your claim that purely semantic categories do not influence
> morphology.  Note the whole series of possessive adjs derived from animals:
> volchiy, sobachiy, sviniy, etc.  (One of many examples...)
> Jules Levin
> Los Angeles
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  --
> Richard M. Robin, Ph.D.
> Director Russian Language Program
> The George Washington University
> Washington, DC 20052
> 202-994-7081
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Russkiy tekst v UTF-8
>
>
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> Alina Israeli
> Associate Professor of Russian
> WLC, American University
> 4400 Massachusetts Ave.
> Washington DC 20016
> (202) 885-2387  fax (202) 885-1076
> aisrael at american.edu
>
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