Possessive adjectives in Russian and English

In Russian there are several categories of adjectives: they are qualitative, relative and possessive. The first express the qualities of the subject: tall, thin, wide, large, 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 often denote the material, the composition of the object, denoted by the word being determined, its time sign or purpose: plastic, fur, parent, 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 - possessive adjectives, expressing the identity 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), a pretty significant difference, is not it? Even possessive adjectives can be confused with qualitative ones, but this happens rarely and usually happens if the adjective is used in figurative meaning - "bear walk".

In addition, possessive adjectives (unlike 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 also help in the analysis of words by composition.

In Russian textbooks on English there is also some confusion in what to consider as possessive adjectives (posessive adjectives), as 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 of the English language, therefore, are 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 really 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 The noun does not follow). 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.