XXIII. Words of the category of state, statives

Among the words signifying properties of nouns there is a specific set: the words built up by the prefix – a and denoting different states, mostly of temporary duration. They are different from adjectives, because they can’t function as attributes. Their function in the sentence is that of a predicative, rarely – post-positional attributes to nouns. In Russian those words usually end in –o, but may have other suffixes: одиноко, радостно, жаль, лень. They form a closed set of several dozen, they don’t have the degrees of comparison. “The streets were alive with traffic”, “No man alive could do it”, “Swimmers are afraid of the sharks”, “The artist felt ashamed of his bad work”, “They were aware of the danger”, “The whole town was astir with the news”, afire, afoot (затевается), askew (наклонный), ajar = half-open.

Glossary of Linguistic Terms

1. Indication - указание

2. states of temporary duration – временные состояния

3. extralinguistic phenomena – явления, находящиемя за пределами науки лингвистики

4. prepositions of place and movement – предлоги места и перемещения

5. causal - причинные

6. contradictory – противоречащие

Additional reading

1. стр. 74-75

2. стр. 37-39, 89-90

3. –

4. стр. 224-229

5. стр. 228