Жил один рыжий человек

First published 3 February 2019 @ sólo algunas palabras

Жил один рыжий человек, у которого не было глаз и ушей. У него не было и волос, так что рыжим его называли условно. Даниил Хармс

There was a red-haired man who had no eyes or ears. Neither did he have any hair, so he was called red-haired theoretically. Daniil Kharms

In Russian, adjectives agree with the noun in case, gender, and number. For instance, «рыжий кот» (ginger cat) in nominative [Example 1m]:

	adjective	noun
singular	рыжий	кот
	Nom / m / s	Nom / m / s
plural	рыжие	коты
	Nom / pl	Nom / m / pl

If we change the noun to genitive, the adjective follows suit [Ex. 2m]:

	adjective	noun
singular	рыжего	кота
	Gen / m / s	Gen / m / s
plural	рыжих	котов
	Gen / pl	Gen / m / pl

Replacing кот (tomcat) with кошка (female cat), we have [Ex. 1f]:

	adjective	noun
singular	рыжая	кошка
	Nom / f / s	Nom / f / s
plural	рыжие	кошки
	Nom / pl	Nom / f / pl

And in genitive [Ex. 2f]:

	adjective	noun
singular	рыжей	кошки
	Gen / f / s	Gen / f / s
plural	рыжих	кошек
	Gen / pl	Gen / f / pl

Luckily for learners of Russian, the plural forms of adjectives are the same irrespectively of gender. (It was not always the case.)

Now let’s add some cardinal numerals to our ginger tomcat [Ex. 3m]:

	numeral	adjective	noun
1	один	рыжий	кот
	Nom / m	Nom / m / s	Nom / m / s
2	два	рыжих	кота
	Nom / m	Gen / pl	Gen / m / s
3	три	рыжих	кота
	Nom	Gen / pl	Gen / m / s
4	четыре	рыжих	кота
	Nom	Gen / pl	Gen / m / s
5	пять	рыжих	котов
	Nom	Gen / pl	Gen / m / pl

What just happened? As you can see, the numerals other than один cause the nouns and adjectives to change the case to genitive. But if with пять (and above) both nouns and adjectives become, logically enough, plural, with the numerals два, три and четыре the noun stays in singular. We already mentioned that these three numerals behave as if not quite plural. The reason is, Proto-Indo-European and its descendants, in addition to singular and plural, had a grammatical number called dual (in Russian, двойственное число), which was used for pairs only. In modern Russian only a few traces of dual remain. However, some properties of dual were somehow extended to groups of three or four. I recently learned a (not widely known, but useful) term маломножественное число (literally, “few-plural number”), but I’d like to have something shorter. On Tamara’s suggestion, we can call this number “fewral” (pronounced /ˈfjuːrəl/; never mind that there is an identically spelled Turkmen word for February) or, for Spanish-speaking learners,“pocal” (from poco; please ignore the Romanian word meaning “goblet”).

Now, once again, let’s change the cat’s gender [Ex. 3f]:

	numeral	adjective	noun
1	одна	рыжая	кошка
	Nom / f	Nom / f / s	Nom / f / s
2	две	рыжих	кошки
	Nom / f	Gen / pl	Gen / f / s
3–4	три-четыре	рыжих	кошки
	Nom	Gen / pl	Gen / f / s
5–20	пять	рыжих	кошек
	Nom	Gen / pl	Gen / f / pl

Comparing the masculine and feminine examples, you might have noticed that the pattern for 2 is not exactly the same as for 3 and 4. This is because the feminine form две is different from masculine (and neuter) form два, just like одна is different from masculine/neuter form один. Otherwise, we see the now-familiar story here: “fewral” nouns are in genitive singular, adjectives in genitive plural.

And this could be “it”... if it not were for the fact that another way is possible [Ex. 4f]:

	numeral	adjective	noun
1	одна	рыжая	кошка
	Nom / f	Nom / f / s	Nom / f / s
2	две	рыжие	кошки
	Nom / f	Nom / pl	Nom / f / pl
3–4	три-четыре	рыжие	кошки
	Nom	Nom / pl	Nom / f / pl
5–20	пять	рыжих	кошек
	Nom	Gen / pl	Gen / f / pl

That’s right, both «две рыжих кошки» and «две рыжие кошки» are correct. But why? Going back to Examples [1f] and [2f]: did you notice that the genitive singular form, кошки, is identical to the nominative plural? Well this is how Russian feminine nouns behave, as a rule. So in “fewral” we can have either «рыжих кошки» (both genitive) or «рыжие кошки» (both nominative, both plural). Makes sense? Kind of. I think it is a matter of personal preference. I, for example, prefer «две шуточные песни» to «две шуточных песни». Perhaps my internal grammarian just likes to maximise the number of nominatives. Shame I can’t do the same with masculine and neuter.

You may ask, why did I write “5–20” rather than “5 and more”? Because when we reach 21, we say «двадцать одна рыжая кошка» (back to singular), then 22 «двадцать две рыжих кошки» or «двадцать две рыжие кошки» (back to fewral), and so on. Every time we hit a numeral ending with один/одна, два/две, три or четыре, we repeat the singular and fewral spiel again and again.

Last but not least: all these strange things happen only when our cardinal numerals are in nominative. As soon as we put them in any other case, the whole construction declines in a totally regular fashion, e.g. «одному рыжему коту» (dative) or «двумя рыжими кошками» (instrumental).

For homework, please take Kharms’ «один рыжий человек» and see what could happen with two, three, eleven and fifty-one theoretical red-haired men using Example [3m].