Russian(Indo-European, Slavonic)

Mismatch 1: word class: noun/adjective

Mismatch 2: morphosyntax: reflexive

Mismatch 1

(This is a brief account; for a more detailed discussion see here.) Russian has a few nouns which decline as adjectives. Noun and adjective declension are quite distinct from each other, as seen in the paradigm below:


 feminine noun
'sick student (F) '		 masculine noun
'sick student (M)'		 neuter noun
'sick heart'
NOM SG bol´n-aja studentk-a bol´n-oj student bol´n-oe serdc-e
ACC SG bol´n-uju studentk-u bol´n-ogo student-a bol´n-ogo serdc-a
GEN SG bol´n-oj studentk-i bol´n-ogo student-a bol´n-ogo serdc-a
DAT SG bol´n-oj studentk-e bol´n-omu student-u bol´n-omu serdc-u
LOC SG bol´n-oj studentk-e bol´n-om student-e bol´n-om serdc-e
INS SG bol´n-oj studentk-oj bol´n-ym student-om bol´n-ym serdc-em
NOM PL bol´n-ye studentk-i bol´n-ye student-y bol´n-ye serdc-a
ACC PL bol´n-yx studentok bol´n-yx student-ov bol´n-yx serdec
GEN PL bol´n-yx studentok bol´n-yx student-ov bol´n-yx serdec
DAT PL bol´n-ym studentk-am bol´n-ym student-am bol´n-ym serdc-am
LOC PL bol´n-yx studentk-ax bol´n-yx student-ax bol´n-yx serdc-ax
INS PL bol´n-ymi studentk-ami bol´n-ymi student-ami bol´n-ymi serdc-ami
(Nouns display other declension classes as well, but they bear no closer a resemblence to adjectives than the ones illustrated above.)

However, a few nouns decline like adjectives, e.g.:


'tailor'
SG PL
NOM portn-oj portn-ye
ACC portn-ogo portn-yx
GEN portn-ogo port-nyx
DAT portn-omu portn-ym
LOC portn-om portn-yx
INS portn-ym portn-ymi

In spite of its morphology, it does not have the syntactic properies of adjectives; e.g. it cannot be used attributively:

adjective
noun
Vrač vyslušivaet bol´nogo moskviča. *Vrač vyslušivaet portnogo moskviča.
'The doctor examines the sick Muscovite.' *'The doctor examines the tailor (?)Muscovite.'

Etyomologically, portnoj is the lexicalization of a now-obsolete adjective portnoj 'fabric' (itself derived from the now-obsolete noun portno 'fabric'), used as a noun. Following Huddleston and Pullum (2002), such formations can be called 'fused head-modifiers', i.e. a modifier with an assumed underlying noun head. These are still productive in Russian, e.g. the adjective bol´noj 'sick', can be used by itself as a noun meaning 'sick person, patient'. Note, though, that these vary in form according to the gender of the referent, like adjectives, while a noun such as portnoj has a fixed gender, like a noun. If a female referent is intended, another noun must be used (such as portnixa 'seamstress'):1

fused head-modifier
noun
Vrač vyslušivaet bol´nuju / bol´nogo. Vrač vyslušivaet portnogo / portnixu .
'The doctor examines the female / male patient.' 'The doctor examines the tailor / seamstress.'

Zaliznjak's (1987) morphological dictionary lists a number of nouns which are formally adjectives (roughly 80-90, if participles are excluded), though in many cases, adjectival uses still occur. There is an interesting subclass, consisting mostly of militaryor nautical terms, where the adjective is characterized by initial stress and the noun by end stress, such as staršój 'superior' (cf. stáršij 'older') or mačtovój 'mastman (cf. máčtovyj 'having to do with a mast')

However, some such nouns seem to have skipped the adjectival stage in Russian, their adjectival form due to their being learned formations. For example, nasekomoe 'insect' was a calque on Latin insectus (via French, according to Vasmer's Russisches etymologisches Wörterbuch), literally 'cut into', itself a calque on a Greek word. Morphologically, the Russian word is the present passive participle (following the Latin model) of nasekat´ 'cut', in the neuter form. (Similarly with the present active participle mlekopitajuščee 'mammal', a Church Slavonicism, literally meaning 'milk suckler'.) Although participles are morphologically adjectives, nasekomoe cannot typically be used as an adjective.2

Mismatch 2

The reflexive, formed with the suffix -sja (postconsonantal)/-s´ (postvocalic) has a number of different function, all of which entail that the resulting verb is intransitive, i.e. cannot take a direct object in the accusative case (Timberake 2004: 345-48); thus e.g. izmenit´ 'change (TR)' ~ izmenit´sja 'change (INTR)', stroit´ 'build' ~ stroit´sja 'be built', myt´ 'wash (TR)' ~ myt´sja 'wash oneself'. Some verbs exist only in the reflexive form; among these, some historically govern a genitive object (slušat´sja 'obey').3

Thus, there is a regular correlation between reflexive morphology and intransitivity (in the sense of a lack of an accusative object). However, reflexive verbs which govern a genitive object '...have begun to allow the accusative in the colloquial register with objects naming unique individuals' (Timberlake 2004: 319, referring to Butorin 1966). This is part of a more general tendency observable in constructions which can take a genitive object (Graudina, Ickovič and Katlinskaja 1976: 33-34).

Some examples of the verb bojat´sja 'be afraid of', which according to the normative standard should govern the genitive, are given below. These are taken from the Russian National Corpus (http://www.ruscorpora.ru/index.html):

Provodi menja, a to ja boju-s´ Polj-u
lead.IMP me.ACC but then I fear.1SG-REFL P.-ACC.SG
‘Come with me, or else I'll get scared of Polja.'
(Irina Grekova. Letom v gorode. 1962)

Ja boju-s´ sobak-u iz sosedn-ego dom-a
I fear.1SG-REFL dog-ACC.SG from neighboring.GEN.SG house-GEN.SG
‘I'm afraid of the dog from the house next door.'
(Nadežda Tavorova. Strax v detskix glazax. Večernjaja Moskva. 19-9-2002)

...deržav-a, kotor-uju bojal-sja ves´ mir
state-NOM.SG which-ACC.SG fear.PST-REFL whole.NOM.SG world.NOM.SG
‘...the State, which the whole world was afraid of'
(Pëtr Akopov and Georgij Il´ičev. Ubyvajuščaja nostal´gija: 10 let bez SSSR. Izvestija. 12-24-2001)

Notes

1 Marginally, the feminine form portnaja may be found in artificial beaurocratic usage.

2 Note though that attributive adjectives can be formed from such nouns by conversion, e.g. from životnoe 'animal', which has the form of a neuter adjective, one finds životnyj mir 'animal kingdom' (literally 'animal world')', where životnyj is a masculine adjective modifying mir 'world'.

3 Not to be confused with the regularly derived slušat´sja 'be heard', from slušat´ 'listen'.

References

Graudina, Ljudmila Karlovna, Viktor Aleksandrovič Ickovič and Lija Pavlovna Katlinskaja 1976. Grammatičeskaja pravil'nost´ russkoj reči . Moscow: Nauka.

Huddleston, Rodney and Geoff Pullum. 2002. The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Timberlake, Alan. 2004. A reference grammar of Russian. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Zaliznjak, A. A. 1987. Grammatičeskij slovar´ russkogo jazyka. Moscow: Russkij jazyk.