In Russian there are several categoriesadjectives: they are qualitative, relative and possessive. The first express the qualities of the subject: tall, thin, wide, big, slow, red, etc. Qualitative names include adjectives that denote color, form, character traits, physical and space-time attributes of the word being determined. As a rule, qualitative adjectives have several grammatical features, due to which they can be distinguished from adjectives of other categories.
Relative adjectives most oftendesignate the material, the composition of the object, denoted by the word being determined, its time sign or purpose: plastic, fur, parental, tomorrow. All these signs are constant, and the adjectives do not form comparative degrees and do not have other attributes of qualitative adjectives. Therefore, in most cases, they are fairly easy to distinguish. But not always.
Finally, another category - possessiveadjectives expressing the belonging of the word: fox fur, mother shawl, shark tail. However, confusion can sometimes arise, because it is not always easy to distinguish between possessive adjectives. Examples are indicative: fox fur and fox fur coat (that is, sewn from fox fur), shark fin and shark steak (from a shark), quite a significant difference, is not it? Even possessive adjectives can be confused with qualitative ones, but this happens rarely and usually occurs if the adjective is used in figurative meaning - "bear walk".
In addition, possessive adjectives (inthe difference from the adjectives of the remaining digits) have zero endings. In the phrase "bear fur" the adjective is formed from the noun "bear" by adding the suffix "iy" and has a zero ending, and the adjectives "red", "far" have the ending "iy". So the knowledge of the categories of adjectives can help even when parsing words by composition.
In Russian textbooks in English alsothere is some confusion in what to consider as possessive adjectives (posessive adjectives), since they are traditionally studied in the subject of possessive pronouns, thus distinguishing the relative and absolute form of pronouns. However, in British English there is no such classification, there are only possessive pronouns and possessive adjectives given in the table below.
Possessive adjectives | Possessive pronouns | ||
we | my | mine | my |
your | is yours | yours | is yours |
his | him | his | him |
her | her | hers | her |
its | his her | ||
our | our | ours | our |
your | your | yours | your |
their | their | theirs | their |
Possessive English adjectives,thus, is often called the relative form of possessive pronouns, however, in fact, this category does not exist. This is done for the convenience of studying English grammar, since in Russian these words are indeed pronouns.
Adjectives in this case are easy to distinguish,because they always require a noun (that is, my pen, his coat), while pronouns are used in such grammatical constructions as this pencil is mine, that coat is his (that is, they are not followed by a noun). Possessive adjectives in both languages - a topic that has a lot of nuances that need to be taken into account, so it's better to thoroughly study it.
