Page:Dictionary of spoken Russian (1945).djvu/234

 These are used, beside the long forms, as predicates: она красива "she is beautiful," она красивая rather "she is a beautiful person." The N form is used also as an adverb: хорошо "well, nicely," and as an impersonal predicate: хорошо "it's good; things are fine; (it's) all right"; мне хорошо "I feel fine."

The short M form, having no ending, is subject to vowel insertion: краткий "short": краток "he's short"; горький "bitter": горек; умный "clever": умён; видный "visible": виден; покойный "quiet": покоен; but, with consonants that take no inserted vowel, мёртвый "dead": мёртв; ветхий "decrepit": ветх; жёлтый "yellow": жёлт; твёрдый "hard": твёрд.

Many adjectives whose stem ends in [n] preceded by an unstressed vowel are spelled with нн except in the short M form, which is spelled with н: безнравственный [bjiznraistvj'n'y] "immoral": sh M безнравствен, F безнравственна [-stvj'na]. Other adjectives end in [nn] preceded by a stressed vowel; these insert a vowel in the short M form: длинный [dljinn'y] "long": sh M длинен, F длинна. However, adjectives of both these kinds which are participles of verbs (§24) have only one [n] in the short forms: испорченный [isporč'n'y] "spoiled": испорчен, испорчена; поражённый [p'ražonn'y] "beaten": поражён, поражена.

There are many irregularities of accent in the sh forms; these are shown in the dictionary by the sign sh and the endings; many have optional shifts of accent; we place the indications of these between slanted lines:

бедный, sh -дни: the sh forms are беден, бедна, бедно, бедны великий sh /-ка, -о, -и/: the sh forms are велик, велика or велика, велико or велико, велики or велики; the forms with accent on the stem mean rather "great"; those with accent on the endings rather "big" видный, sh -дна /-ы/: the sh forms are виден, видна, видно, видны or видны сухой, sh сух, -ха, сухо, -хи: the sh forms are сух, суха, сухо, сухи. Occasionally the sh N form has a different stress in adverbial and impersonal use; we mark this as adv: больной, sh болен, -льна, -о, -ы; adv больно; this means that the sh forms are болен, больна, больно, больны, and that больно means "it is sick," but больно means "painfully" or "it hurts."

Short forms, with noun-like endings, in cases other than n appear only in special phrases; thus, beside первый "first," there is сперва (preposition с with g N) "first of all."

Many adjectives have no sh forms; especially some whose stems end in [nj], such as верхний "upper" and those in [sk], such as русский "Russian." The latter have adverbs with ending [-i]: дружески "in a friendly way," and often with no- prefixed: по-русски "in Russian." Other instances are more isolated: большой "big" has no sh forms; those of великий "great" are used instead; маленький "little" has none; those of малый are used instead.

Comparative Forms. Many adjectives have comparative (cp) forms. The long cp form is made by adding [-jeyš] with long adjective endings: красивый "beautiful": красивейший. This form means "very beautiful." With наи- prefixed it has superlative meaning: наикрасивейший "the most beautiful." In comparative meaning one uses the adverb более "more" with the ordinary long form: более красивый "more beautiful." In superlative meaning one uses самый "the same, the very" with the ordinary long form: самый красивый "the most beautiful."

There is only one cp sh form for all three genders and the plural; it has the ending [-jeya], written -ее: она красивее "she is prettier." This form often has no- prefixed to it, meaning "somewhat more" or "as much as possible" or forming an adverb or used with nouns: поскорее "more quickly; rather quickly; as quickly or as soon as possible"; картина покрасивее "a prettier picture." Often the ending is shortened to [-ey]: красивей.

The cp forms stress the same syllable as the ordinary form; however, all adjectives that stress any ending in the ordinary long or sh forms have the stress on the first syllable of the cp ending: бледный, sh -дни "pale" gives cp бледнейший, бледнее.

Many adjectives have no cp forms.

There are many irregular cp forms. Most of these have [-ayš] in the long forms and [-i], written -е in the short: горький "bitter": горчайший, горче [gorči]. A few differ entirely from the ordinary forms:

большой "big": больше, adv более [bolj'ya], больший "bigger" малый, мaленький "small": меньше, adv менее, меньший молодой "young": моложе; младший плохой "bad": хуже, плоше,: худший старый "old": старше; старший хороший "good": лучше; лучший

These six long forms have comparative meaning; лучшая квартира "a better apartment"; also, they, and not the ordinary forms, combine with самый in superlative meaning: самый лучший "the best," also наилучший.

Irregular cp forms are given in full in the dictionary.

 

Irregular adjectives include some types of special formations and a small number of pronominal adjectives and pronouns. In the dictionary we indicate their irregularities by numbers which refer to the sections here following.

 

Adjectives whose stem ends in consonant plus [y] have noun-like forms in the nominatives and in the F accusative, and lack sh forms. In the Mn the inserted vowel is written и: stem [trjetjy-] "third": n третий, третья, третье, третьи, Fa третью. The other forms are regular: Mg третьего, Fgdil третьей, Pgl третьих, and so on. Most of these mean "obtained from" a living being: рыбий "of fish," божий "of God, divine."

Family names and place names whose stem ends in [-in, -ov] have noun-like forms in the nominatives, the F accusative, 