(no subject)

[upthera44.livejournal.com]

How does the use of the formal you (вы) agree with other parts of speech in direct address to a single person?
This is something I've observed to be somewhat inconsistent in my conversations and courses in Russian.
Intuitively, since вы is a plural noun, I would think all adjectives and verbs would decline/conjugate
to a plural form, despite the fact that you are speaking to only one person. But I've noticed that in certain
situations people will use singular forms with the pronoun вы and this is confusing.

For instance:

Вы готовы?

but then you have...

Вы бизесмен? (*not* вы бизесмены)

Comments

[oryx_and_crake]

Yes, it is indeed somewhat inconsistent if you think of it.

- Вы готовы?
- Вы красивы. (But: Вы такая красивая. Вы симпатичный.)
- Вы бизнесмен?
- Вы замечательный учитель! (to add to the confusion, this can be addressed to both males and females)

I am afraid I don't know the formal rules though but you will surely find them in a grammar book.

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

It looks (to me) like the adjectives are pluralized to match вы but the nouns aren’t?

[oryx_and_crake]

Looks like that, yes. Short form of adjectives is, that is, and the full form is not. However I, like most native speakers, probably never thought or cared whether there is a formal rule. So I might be mistaken. Don't grammar books on Russian as foreign language have an entry on this?

[upthera44.livejournal.com]

Yes, there probably are a series of rules in a grammar book. I'll take a look in one later and if I find anything worthwhile I will post it here later.

[stephan-nn.livejournal.com]

May be because businessman is only one?
LIKE in English: you ARE the businessman! "ARE you THE businessman", not "are you businessmen"

[eavanmoore.livejournal.com]

Not the same, 'are' is singular there.

[natha1ie.livejournal.com]

I'll try to explain. In Russian there are two different form, вы (plural, like you in English) and Вы (polite form addressing to a one person, who's for example older than speaker). As you mentioned above, all adjectives and verbs would decline/conjugate to a plural form.
In the question Вы бизнесмен? a verb есть omitted (normal situation in Russian in Present tense). Бизнесмен is noun, so the person to whom addressed this question is in singular too.
Готовы is short form of adjective готовые (plural for готовый), i.e. like in English "Are you ready?"
Sorry for clumsy English.

[oryx_and_crake]

Yes, but the question was not about that: when you address only one person, you will still say "Вы готовы?", not "Вы готов?", and that's what upthera44 found inconsistent.

OK.

[natha1ie.livejournal.com]

I mean Вы with adjectives and verbs acts just like вы plural.
Compare Вы счастливы? и вы счастливы? Вы идете? и вы идете?
Singular polite Вы demands singular noun. вы честные люди, but Вы честный человек.
Is it more clear now?

Re: OK.

[oryx_and_crake]

I think you don't understand what I am saying.
You will say "Вы счастливы?" and "Вы готовы?" even when you are addressing a single person. However, addressing the same single person, you would say "Вы хороший" or "Вы бизнесмен?". And this is what upthera44 found inconsistent.

Below

[natha1ie.livejournal.com]

Just1user has posted a rule. That's what I was trying to say.

I'm not a linguist, but a Russian native speaker with so-called врожденная грамотность (inborne grammatical correctness).
Sorry if I misguide you.

Re: Below

[oryx_and_crake]

What he posted is not exactly a rule. And I am a native speaker too. My point was that referring to the same single person through the same pronoun, we have to use plural in some cases and singular in some other cases and this may seem inconsistent to someone who is not a native speaker. And that was the reason for the original question.

[just1user.livejournal.com]

The only set of rules that I've found
Так, исследователи полагают, что в случае «вежливого вы» нужно говорить уже не о транспозиции «основного» вы, а об особом местоимении – «вежливое вы», которое и по правилам поверхностного согласования отличается от «основного» вы: требует множественного числа глаголов и кратких прилагательных (Вы невежливы), но единственного числа существительных и полных прилагательных (Вы – грубиян; Вы такой невежливый)(см. (Булыгина – Шмелев 1997: 330–331).
=====
[Some] researchers suppose that formal "вы" is not a transposition of plural 'вы', but a special pronoun and requires plural verbs and short forms of adjectives, but singular forms of nouns and full form of adjectives. ( I think that [some] sounds natural here, otherwise they'd provide references to some more classical grammar books like Розенталь. )

"You are A businessman?" - "Вы бизнесмен?"

[freiburg234.livejournal.com]

Compare:

"You are businessmen?" - "Вы бизнесмены?" - "We're businessmen" - "Мы бизнесмены."

"You are A businessman?" - "Вы бизнесмен?" - "I'm A businessman" - "Я бизнесмен."

If you look closely, you'll see that the English "You ARE" used to address a SINGLE person is essentially the same as the polite form found in Russian or German ("Sie sind", formerly "Ihr seid"). The only difference is that in English we have lost the awareness that "you are" for a single person was originally a polite form of address analogous to other plural forms in other languages.