2i8 Greville G. Corbett
11 Adjectival outliers
We have considered semantic classes of adjective which are cross-linguistically un-
usual. In this section we considers classes of lexical item which have some adjec-
tival properties, together with properties of another major word class.
11.1. PARTICIPLESRussian has active and passive participles, which are verb-like in retaining argu-
ment structure but adjective-like in their morphology and to a large extent in their
syntax. Participles are stylistically limited, being found primarily in written lan-
guage. (Krasil'nikova 1973:177-96 discusses the use of participles in conversational
Russian.) The past passive participle is the most productive, and this occurs even in
spoken usage. It is the one most like an adjective, and has a short form which is all
but obligatory when the past passive participle is used in the predicate.
Original participles may be lexicalized as ordinary adjectives (which are then
available in various genres of Russian). For example, ljubimyj 'favourite' is original-
ly the present passive participle ofljubit' 'like, love'.
11.2. ADJECTIVAL NOUNSThe adjective may function fully productively as the sole element of a noun phrase
(§7.3). Other examples show varying degrees of lexicalization, where morphologic-
al adjectives function essentially as nouns. A common type includes vannaja 'bath-
room' and stolovaja 'dining room', which have the inflections of feminine singular
adjectives, and of the plural, and function as nouns. The 'missing' noun is identifi-
able as komnata 'room', but this noun is unlikely to appear with the adjectival noun.
Then there are instances like portnoj 'tailor' (with masculine and plural forms).
This shows its noun-like property in that it has a derived adjective portnovskij 'tai-
lor (adjective)'. Next we find instances like zapjataja 'comma', which has feminine
and plural forms, and for which it is difficult to suggest any possible 'missing' noun.
As an aside, it is worth pointing out that the 'bridging' status of adjectives is shown
by the neuter fofmprilagatel'noe 'adjective'. Here the noun imja 'noun, nominal' is
clearly understood, and often appears, and equally is often absent. (See Grascenko
and Saj 2002 for further discussion.)
All these forms have the syntax of nouns (taking adjectival modifiers and
adnominal genitives, for example) and the morphology of part of the adjectival
paradigm (see Spencer 2002). There is one respect, however, in which they retain
the syntactic behaviour of adjectives. The numerals dva 'two', tri 'three', and cetyre
'four', when in a direct case, take nouns in the genitive singular (compare §10.13.2),
but adjectives in the genitive plural. In this respect, adjectival nouns are adjectival,
in that they must appear in the genitive plural.
11.3. NAMESMany Russian names are adjectival in form, for part or all of their paradigm. Some