Russian linguistics: Association
Jan. 22nd, 2009 05:28 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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learn_russianIn English we have "associative" adjectives which do not directly change the traits of their head noun but associate something else with it:
dental decay = decay of teeth
dental building = *building of teeth
or rather:
autumnal weather = weather associated with autumn / *weather composed of autumn
autumnal colours = colours associated with autumn / *colours composed of autumn
Anyone who knows French can easily understand with adjectives before/after:
un homme grande = a tall/big man
un grand homme = a great man (lit. 'a man associated with tallness/bigness' / 'a man figuratively big')
Does Russian have any such associative adjectives? Do they behave differently than the others?
Это снег - зимный.
Обстановка в комнате - зимна. (associative???)
dental decay = decay of teeth
dental building = *building of teeth
or rather:
autumnal weather = weather associated with autumn / *weather composed of autumn
autumnal colours = colours associated with autumn / *colours composed of autumn
Anyone who knows French can easily understand with adjectives before/after:
un homme grande = a tall/big man
un grand homme = a great man (lit. 'a man associated with tallness/bigness' / 'a man figuratively big')
Does Russian have any such associative adjectives? Do they behave differently than the others?
Это снег - зимный.
Обстановка в комнате - зимна. (associative???)
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-22 06:13 pm (UTC)>Обстановка в комнате - зимна.
Sorry, it doesn't make much sense to me.
You can say:
зимняя сказка
to describe a picture like this one
зимние шины (winter tires)
зимнее пальто (winter coat)
no subject
Date: 2009-01-22 06:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-22 06:42 pm (UTC)Sometimes it's hard to distinguish 'traits' and 'relationships': yus can say: "this is a beef chop" - is it associative? - and I can answer "it's not very beef, it's mostly soy", and this would be a trait.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-22 09:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 01:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 07:31 am (UTC)In Russian there's no grammatical distinction of such adjectives. Although, as it has been mentioned earlier, Russian has two groups of adjectives according to their meaning: qualitative and relative. Qualitative adjectives have a comparative and superlative forms, while relative don't (such a form can be constructed grammaticaly but is meaningless lexically).
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 01:29 pm (UTC)Он больной.
Этот костюм маленький. (Это маленький костюм)
Этот костюм мал.
Платье великó.
рад - only the short form
должен,
нужен - a very special case.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:06 pm (UTC)Your question is not clear.
Why did you add this зимна?
And besides, you seem arrogant.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:08 pm (UTC)Does "dental" mean the same thing in "dental building" as in "dental expert" or "dental disease" or "dental specialist" or "dental jewellry"? Does "big" mean the same thing in "big building" or "big plan" or "big dog"?
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:12 pm (UTC)I am tired of every question in this community being pounced upon by people assuming they're basic questions the OP could find out by looking in a Russian grammar book but is just too lazy.
If you read the first 9/10 of the post you wouldn't have answered by telling me the inflectional patterns of adjectives
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:13 pm (UTC)No, in these phrases adjectives mean different things, like in "big dog" "big" is related to physical size, but in "big plan" the concept of greatness is transferred onto abstract notion, and is not related to physical size anymore. This is general use of metaphor, and it's not specific to either English or Russian, I believe.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:15 pm (UTC)I thought a linguist could know the difference between relatival and qualitative adjectives. As well as the patterns.
There is a certain difference between
болен
and
больной
Didn´t you look up in a dictionary?
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:18 pm (UTC)I thought a linguist could know the difference between relatival and qualitative adjectives. As well as the patterns.
There is a certain difference between
болен
and
больной
Didn´t you look up in a dictionary?
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:19 pm (UTC)Is болен relational then, because he's not actually in pain but is "related" to pain?
So is девушка - красива relational while
девушка - красивая is qualitative?
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:26 pm (UTC)"Он больной"
means "He is a sick person". (He has tb o sth. like that)
I thought that was the question.
They are both qualitative, by the way
красивая
and
красива
are both qualitative.
But if you say "Красива природа Уругвая" - it is a complete sentense. The nature of Uruguay is beautiful.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:26 pm (UTC)If you want to make it clear then convey 1,000 pages of horribly abstract and complicated literature regarding lexical semantics in a small internet post and do it saliently. This stuff is hard enough for me to understand let alone make it understandable to any random person.
If it wasn't clear, maybe people could ask to clarify. It's confusing enough for myself. Sorry but I don't like pointless pedanticism, but I said thanks because I noticed that you realised it was off-topic.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:32 pm (UTC)I'm talking about say, зимние шины are tyres which are for the winter but are not specifically winter tyres while огромные шины are tyres which are huge (trait).
Are there certain behaviours differing between the two? Do they change meaning in different positions as they do in some other languages (like English or French)?
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:35 pm (UTC)When French grande is describing a trait, it has to be in a different position than when grande is relating something to something else. That's about as grammatical as you can get.
You could call them different "words", but then you'd suddenly have 2-3x as many words in French which are really redundant.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:39 pm (UTC)Speaking about "big dog" and "big idea" (this example is clearer), I would say «большая собака» и «грандиозная идея» (we don't use большой for идея; preference of грандиозный over большой in this case is just usus, and not some systematic rule). In this case there's a metaphorical link indeed, because in "big idea" («грандиозная идея») we try to stress that this idea has some degree of grandeur, which is physically possible only in physical objects.
Conclusion: observed difference in Russian translations of your examples are explained by different usage (usus), and not by lexical or whatever else differences.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:43 pm (UTC)at least I TRY to understand what other people say/write most of the time and not jump to basic conclusions without making sure that's actually what they want to hear. Why would I write 18 lines of examples when only the last 2 lines are what I want you to read?
Unfortunately even chemists or engineers can't be bothered to learn a tiny bit about lexical semantics, even if a certain lexical semanticist might love to try to help with engineering
sorry and I'll think if being a member of this community is best for me or not
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:43 pm (UTC)больной
болен
большой - big
велик - too big (clothes)
маленький - small
мал - too small (clothes)
But it doesn´t depend on the position. It depends on the form. If you use the short form before or after the subject, it will be the predicate.
Природа Уругвая красива. Красива природа Уругвая. The nature of Uruguay is beautiful.
The meaning of красива doesn´t change
But if you use these three adjectives, they change meaning depending on the form.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:48 pm (UTC)Did I ever ask about the behaviour of "dental building" translated literally into Russian? "dental building" (the ENGLISH construction) has no structural relation to "dental disease" other than they are both ASSOCIATED (i.e. RELATED)to teeth.
Associative? Relational?
Conclusion: your perceptions are based on a bad Russian-English dictionary.
Well you tell ME then which adjectives are qualitative in Russian and which are relational, and you tell me if they behave differently.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:52 pm (UTC)I misused the term “grammatical category”, because these groups of words aren't really categories, you're right.
So your question in the first place was if the same fact (different “words”) is true for Russian? Yes, it is. The same word (in standard definition) could be used to describe a trait («каменные конструкции» — “stone constructions”) or to describe relation («каменное сердце» — “stony heart”).
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:57 pm (UTC)so then:
"каменные конструкции" → "конструкции - каменные/каменны"?
"каменное сердце" → "сердце - каменное/каменно"?
can you use either one for either case? is anything wrong?
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 02:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 03:02 pm (UTC)"winter tyres", "tyres for winter"
"newspaper´s page", "page of a(the) newspaper", "newspaper page"
is the darkest area in English grammar for Russian speakers (speakers of Russian)
I spent hours trying to understand, but there are too many special cases.
Like "containers", "time", etc...
There were funny examples.
e.g.
American football coach
and
American football coach
English teacher (but he is Chinese)
and
English teacher (of Chemistry),
depending on the stress
Can you please explain the difference between "winter tyres" and "tyres for the winter"?
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 03:06 pm (UTC)There's another thing, though. If we speak of «каменный», we cannot have a comparative and/or superlative form (something cannot be more or less «каменный») and a short form, thus we cannot say «конструкции — каменны» and «сердце — каменно». But at the same time, with «грандиозная идея» → «идея — грандиозная/грандиозна» everything is quite well, because «грандиозный» does have comparative, superlative and short forms.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 03:16 pm (UTC)In this case, "winter tyres" would be literally tyres made of winter (obviously impossible) in the same way as "rubber tyres".
rubber/big/small/good/bad/expensive tyres = tyres[(which are) x]
winter/summer/Michelin/off-road tyres = *tyres[(which are) x]
The second group are the ones which are less straightforward, and are the ones I'm concerned about-- even English speakers can't explain every example.
In your examples, "Américan fòotball coach" (a coach of American football) would be group 2 while "American fóotball còach" (a football coach who is American) is, complicated enough, group 1 and group 2 (but for your learning is better to be considered group 1 even though the coach is not actually "made of" America as it should be)
Similarly, "Énglish teacher" is group 2 while "English téacher" is group 1 (or 1&2)
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 03:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 03:19 pm (UTC)I take back everything cheeky I wrote before!
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 03:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 03:22 pm (UTC)I.e. the part of the hospital you go to to have your wisdom teeth removed
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 03:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 03:27 pm (UTC)"rubber" doesn´t seem to be in the right place
I guess, there is no universal explanation.
As i said, too many exceptions.
Is there "winter coat"?
e.g.
you can say "chicken leg"
but not "table leg"
So you asked the unclearest question possible.
I don´t dig it yet.
Correct version
Date: 2009-01-23 03:45 pm (UTC)A: They're rubber/big/small/good/bad/expensive.
A: *They're winter/summer/off-road.
A: They're winter/summer/off-road ones/tyres.
(Michelin is a strange example of both which I'm actually researching right now-- so even native English speakers don't understand)
Q: What kind of coat is it?
A: It's rubber/big/small/good/bad/expensive.
A: *It's winter/summer.
A: It's a winter/summer one/coat.
"Chicken" is like the "Michelin" example as well.
*"table lég" (a table made of "leg") but
"táble leg" (a leg of ("associated with/related to") a table) is okay.
Re: Correct version
Date: 2009-01-23 04:11 pm (UTC)"Rubber" is still in the wrong place. It´s not qualitative. To check it, you can try to say "rubberer" or "more rubber".
But "bigger", more expensive, better, worse are OK.
And i didn´t know "táble leg" is okay. I thought "table leg" was an error. Surprise.
"Car door", then?
To understand it, i should have been born English.
I am sure there is no such examples in Russian.
There is changing of meaning (meaning change) in some cases like
вчерашний суп был лучше (суп, которые ели вчера)
вчерашний суп (несвежий)
It doesn´t have anything to do with the position or the form.
I´m not a linguist, i´m a teacher of Russian as a FL. But, as far as i know, lexical semantics is one of the most difficult things in linguistics. Besides, this "chicken leg"-"table leg"-"car door" is the least clear in English grammar.
So,
try to be patient. And ask linguists, not just speakers of Russian. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 04:12 pm (UTC)Re: Correct version
Date: 2009-01-23 11:26 pm (UTC)You're confusing function with shape-- Rubber can't be graded not because it's not qualitative, but because it's not an adjective.
Both nouns and adjectives can modify nouns, but only adjectives can be graded.
"car door", "stable door", "garden gate", "car tyre"... English loves compounds...
Re: Correct version
Date: 2009-01-23 11:34 pm (UTC)Bu i still don´t understand why do you place "rubber" together with "big", and there is no place for "winter" in this group.
Do "winter tyres" exist or not?
And does "winter coat" exist?
Are they both impossible and "made of winter"?
Is English your native language?
Re: Correct version
Date: 2009-01-23 11:39 pm (UTC)winter tyres exist, but not winter tyres in the sense of tyres made of winter-- only tyres associated with winter
I think I can make these judgements even though my native language is American :P
Re: Correct version
Date: 2009-01-23 11:53 pm (UTC)I really wasn´t sure.
And RUBBER/expensive/big/good ?