8 The Russian Adjective 201are noun-like rather than verb-like. Typical adjectives also occur as agreeing modi-
fiers within the noun phrase:
(3) Kak-aja interesn-aja stat'j-a!
what-FEM.SG.NOM interesting-FEM.SG.NOM article.FEM-SG.NOM
'what an interesting article!'
Zemskaja and Kapanadze (1978: 233) example from conversation
The items which show this combination of syntactic properties include items of
the semantic types DIMENSION (bol'soj 'large'), AGE (staryj 'old'), VALUE (xorosij
good'), and COLOUR (sinij 'dark blue'). While canonical adjectives function readi-
ly in both syntactic environments, many others are predominantly associated with
one or other position, as we shall see below.
4.2. ADJECTIVES AS AN OPEN CLASS
Adjectives form a large class. Townsend (1975: 211) suggests there are between 200
and 300 synchronically underived adjectives; there is a much larger number of de-
rived members. The class is in principle open. However, stems must be consonant
final. There are occasional marginal instances of vowel final borrowings remaining
indeclinable (bordo 'bordeaux colour') but these tend to be regularized (bordovyj
'bordeaux colour'); see Vonen (1997: 75-6), but see Zemskaja (1987: 97) for a con-
flicting view. A useful indication is provided by Lazova (1974: 941), where thirty-
five indeclinable adjectives are found from a total of 24,786 adjectives. Statistical
data on usage are given in §9 below.
4.3. DERIVATIONAL SOURCES OF ADJECTIVES
There are many patterns of derivation which produce adjectives. What would be
noun-noun compounds in many European languages are likely to be expressed in
Russian by a derived adjective plus noun, e.g. kniznyj magazin 'bookshop' (kniznyj
is derived from the noun kniga 'book'). Adjectives are commonly derived from
nouns, verbs, and adjectives, and less often from other parts of speech. However,
derivation is not a major issue, since the resulting forms can be identified accord-
ing to the normal properties of adjectives, without making reference to deriv-
ational history. For extensive examples see Townsend (1975: 212-37) and Lopatin
(19803). The derivational models most productive in colloquial Russian can be
found in Zemskaja, Kitajgorodskaja, and Sirjaev (1981:103-6).
5 Properties of inflectional morphology
Russian adjectives can be distinguished on morphological criteria from nouns and
verbs, though there are overlaps with each. The arguments are spelled out in Vonen
(i997: 53-1O2)»^2 and his summary table makes the point well:
(^2) Vonen considers syntactic criteria too. A useful, brief introduction to work on the 'adjective