Категория определенности / неопределенности и формы прилагательных, называющих материал, в церковнославянском и литовском языках (исторический аспект)

Abstract

In this article the adjectives with the meaning of a material and substance of which a thing is made are considered from the comparative and historical aspects. The research is based on the material of the Church Slavonic language of the 12th–13th centuries and the Lithuanian language. The capacity of the given adjectives to the formation of nominal and pronominal forms is analyzed as well as their connection with the category of definiteness / indefiniteness. The connection of these forms with the lexical meaning of the adjective is also discussed in the article. The development of these adjectives in the languages is specific: they retained their short forms longer than other relative adjectives in the Old Russian language and had opposition of forms in the Lithuanian language a long time before that, though they lost this capacity later, having acquired some other word-formation suffix.