On Forming Deverbal Nouns and Adjectives in Russian

Some deverbal nouns and adjectives govern their complements as nouns and adjectives. In vladelec jazykov ‘polyglot’ genitive case is assigned by the Adnominal Genitive Rule, and in zabyvčiva na imena ‘forgetful of names’ na is required similarly as in the gloss. With other deverbal nouns and adjectives, e.g., vladenie jazykami ‘a command of languages’ and zabyvajuščaja imena ‘who forgets names’, the form of the complement is governed by the embedded verb; compare vladeet jazykami and zabyvaet imena. To capture this affinity, the noun phrase is represented as a noun headed by the noun suffix /-ij/ and containing a verb phrase corresponding to vladeet jazykami, and the adjective phrase is represented as an adjective headed by the adjective suffix /-ušč/ and containing a verb phrase corresponding to zabyvaet imena. These underlying representations give syntax the task of uniting /vlad/ with /-ij/ and /zaby/ with /-ušč/, matters traditionally relegated to a morphology component of the grammar. To relegate them to syntax is to enter uncharted territory.