2o8 Greville G. Corbett
instrumental case. (Unless the copula is the verb byt' 'be' in the present tense, which
is zero, when the nominative is required.) The choice of nominative or instrumen-
tal is similar to that with the noun, except that while the instrumental is used in
the great majority of instances with the noun, it is less dominant with the adjective.
Over the last two centuries the instrumental has extended its use substantially in
copula complements, but with nouns considerably ahead of adjectives. Timberlake
(1993: 862) proposes that the instrumental 'indicates a restriction on a property':
(12) ona byl-a scastliv-oj
3.SG.FEM W3S-3.FEM happy-(Lp)pEM.SG.INST
'she was happy'
Here the instrumental suggests that 'happiness was limited to some time' (Tim-
berlake 1993: 862). This is comparable to the suggestion for the short form, and in-
deed the rise of the long form instrumental has gone together with the decline of
the short form over the last two centuries. Perhaps surprisingly, however, the long
form instrumental is particularly prevalent in journalistic and technical writing.
7.2. MODIFIER IN NOUN PHRASE
The adjective in attributive position typically stands between any determiner and
the noun; for ordering see Sussex (1974). It may take a complement there. Most
often, however, if there is a complement the adjective is postposed:
(13) Lev-yj rukav bjazev-oj
left-(Lp)MASC.SG.NOM arm.MASC.SG.NOM CalicO-(Lp)pEM.SG.GEN
rubask-i, cern-yj ot krovi, lip k ruke.
shirt.FEM-GEN.SG black-(Lp)MASC.SG.NOM from blood stuck to arm
"The left arm of his calico shirt, black with blood, stuck to his arm.'
Uppsala corpus, text XVBAOIOI
In contemporary Russian only the long form is found in this construction.
7.3. SOLE ELEMENT OF NP
The adjective maybe the sole element of the noun phrase. First, this maybe con-
textually determined, as in this description of the village of Andi (Dagestan):
(14) Nov-ye doma, kakpmvilo, bol'se star-yx. ..
new-PL.NOM house-PL.NOM as rule large.coMP old-PL.GEN
'the new houses, as a rule, are larger than the old ones'
Borscev 2001, Zajazykom, p. 35
Second there are regular and productive uses of adjectives as the sole element in
a noun phrase, limited only by the lexical semantics of the adjective. Examples in
the masculine, such as slepoj 'blind (adjective), blind person, or in the plural denote
persons. Examples in the neuter singular denote a mass/abstract. Thus staroe 'what
is old', modnoe 'what is fashionable':