19 



SHORT FORMS OF ADJECTIVES 



Many Russian adjectives have special short forms, four in number, which occur 

 only in the nominative case and only in a predicative("the paper is white" ) usage. Thus, 



Regular Forms 



den-Hit deji-oe deji-an 

 tiHCT-Hli yMCT-oe yMCT-afl 

 Some examples are: 



Byyara - dejia. 

 OfleHJio - mscTo 

 MSBBCTHH TaHHce njieHHM 

 C OCHOBOM. . . 



"The paper is white." 

 "The blanket is clean." 

 "Tapes with a base... are* 

 also well-known." 



These short forms never modify a noun. The freedom of Russian word-order may result 

 in the appearance of the predicative short form ahead of the noun, as in the last example 

 above, but the English translation must separate the noun and the short form adjective by 

 a form of the verb "to be"(i.e. is /are , was /were, will be ). 



The formation of the short form adjective is quite clear from the examples above. 

 However, for some adjectives the normal formation of the masc. short form(deJi< deJi-Hw) 

 would leave a final cluster of consonants unacceptable to the Russian speaker(see page 18). 

 Such clusters are resolved by the insertion of the vowel o^ or ^, e.g. 



HpacH-HH "red" HpaceH 



HOpOTH-HM "short" HOpOT_OK 

 yWH-UH "clever" yweH 



HpacH-0 HpacH-a KpacH-H 



HOpOTH-0 HOpOTH-a KOpOTK-M 



yMH-0 ywH-a yMH-H 



Adjectives ending in -chhm do not have short forms, though the adverb in -ckm might 

 seem to the beginner to be a short form of the plural number(see page 31) 



PRONOUNS 



"I, "you 



me" 

 fl 



MGHfl 



MeHH 



MHe 



MHe 



MHOM, 

 MHOW 



TH 

 TedH 



TedH 

 Tede 

 Tede 



TOdOH, 

 TOdOiO 



"he, him, "it" 



it" 

 OH OHO 



"she ,her, 



it" 

 GHa 



ee/nee 



ee/nee 



eM/Heii 



Hefi 



eS/neK, 

 eio/Heio 



we, 

 us" 

 MH 



Hac 

 Hac 

 Haw 

 Hac 



"you" 

 BH 



sac 

 Bac 

 BaM 

 Bac 



"they, 

 them" 

 OHM 



mx/hmx 

 wx/hmx 

 hm/hhm 

 hhx 



•-self" 



cedH 

 cedfl 

 cede 

 cede 



The pronoun variants with initial h always-occur after prepositions, e.g. 



HaMH BaMM hmm/hmmm codoM, 



COdOK) 



des Hero "without him" 



HHMH "with them" 



Mh rOBOpwjIM Heii. "Vfe were talking about her.' 



Since the prepositional case is used only with prepositions, as in the last example above, 

 it has only a pronoun form with h. 



There are three unchanging possessive words: ero "his" its", ee "hers, its" and mx 

 "their", which should not be confused with similar -appearing case forms of the pronouns. 

 Some contrasts are: 



B ero flOMe 



B HeM 



'in his house" 

 'in him" 



