3

I was doubtful when I saw the words коровье молоко and козье молоко. Then I checked an electronic dictionary (Толковый словарь русского языка for Mac), and there -ья/-ье where referred as the replacements for -ий in their respective adjectives.

So far I knew that there are, in Russian, hard adjectives (красив.ый, -ая, -ое, -ые), soft adjectives (соседн.ий, -яя, -ее, -ие) and mixed adjectives resulting from the spelling requirements after some consonants (хорош.ий, -ая, -ее, -ие).

Is ья/ье an irregular soft ending? Does it decline just like the regular soft endings (in which feminine genitive is -ей and neuter genitive is -его)?

Improve this question

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2

I would look at this from another angle. It is not irregular ending, but irregular stem - a soft sign is attached to it in most forms. It also replaces a vowel in the ending if it is duplicated (-яя, -ии, -ее, -юю).

So you have

средний - коровий

среднего - коровьего

etc., but

средняя - коровья

среднюю - коровью

etc.

There is an exception from this rule in nominative/accusative plural:

средние but коровьи

Improve this answer
3
  • I see. So those possessive adjectives decline almost the same way as common soft adjectives, with the distinction that the letter ь appears in all oblique cases, and feminine accusative is ью instead of юю. If it were not for your example with коровий, I would think that -ий/-ье/-ья would be replaced by -его/-его/-ей rather than -ьего/-ьего/-ьей! And how does plural decline in that case? Is nominative коровие? Its respective genitive turns into коровьих?
    – swrutra
    Aug 20, 2018 at 14:11
  • 1
    @swutra Ah, that is the exception I didn't notice. In plural nominative/accusative it shall be коровьи.
    – AlexVB
    Aug 20, 2018 at 15:31
  • 1
    The key irregularity here, I think, is lack of the -н- suffix which is otherwise common in adjectives derived from nouns.
    – Roman Odaisky
    Aug 20, 2018 at 20:57
1

Such adjectives are called притяжательные прилагательные, posessive adjectives. The ending ий-ье-ья is common for "animal" posessive adjectives. We can see two types of their declension:

корова - коровий - коровье
коза - козий - козье
овца - овечий - овечье
кошка - кошачий - кошачьe
обезьяна - обезьяний - обезьянье
птица - птичий - птичье
рыба - рыбий - рыбье
верблюд - верблюжий - верблюжье
слон - слоновий - слоновье
волк - волчий - волчье
заяц - заячий - заячье
лис/лиса - лисий - лисье
дельфин - дельфиний - дельфинье
крокодил - крокодилий - крокодилье

зверь - звериный - звериное    
оса - осиный - осиное
пчела - пчелиный - пчелиное
муравей - муравьиный - муравьиное
кура/курица - куриный - куриное
змея - змеиный - змеиное

Some declense both ways. For example, there are both соколиный and соколий, both стрекозиный and стрекозий.

Improve this answer

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.