Cases for adjectives synchronizing with nouns

Question

Would it be possible to obtain further clarification on the граматика of adjectives 'synchronizing' with the рід of a іменник within a речення?

I am wondering if the suffix or ending appended to an прикметник, always has to match its closest іменник. Further, what if the іменник is of "mixed/combined" рід (the rare case)?

I am struggling to find different examples.

Answer 1

If we consider nominative case (nouns and adjectives in Ukrainian have 6-7 cases), then adjectives typically end with:

• -ий or -ій for masculine gender;
• -а or -я for feminine gender;
• -е or -є for neuter gender;
• -і for plural.

The Ukrainian word for "red" is червоний; the Ukrainian word for "blue" is синій (you can note masculine gender endings, as it's usually considered as default/dictionary/initial word-form).

So if you want to combine adjectives червоний "red", синій "blue" with nouns хлопець "boy", дівчина "girl", дерево "tree", you should go like this:

• червоний хлопець, синій хлопець _{(— here we use masculine endings for adjective, as noun is masciline);}
• червона дівчина, синя дівчина _{(— here we we use feminine endings for adjective, as noun is feminine);}
• червоне дерево, синє дерево _{(— here we we use neuter endings for adjective, as noun is neuter).}

(There's two groups of adjectives in Ukrainian: "hard" group uses one kind of inflection (-ий, -а, -е, -і) and "soft" uses another (-ій, -я, -є, -і). Червоний belongs to hard group, синій belongs to soft group. That's why adjectives червоний and синій have a bit different endings.)

If you want to say in plural, then irrespectively to noun gender you should use plural adjective endings:

• червоні <some-noun-in-plural-here>, сині <some-noun-in-plural-here>.

If a noun really has "mixed/combined" gender, for example like the word нероба “idler”, then, when combining adjectives with it, you use either masculine adjective endings, or feminine endings — whatever you prefer. Usually you prefer the grammatic gender that corresponds to physical gender of the object — at least when you know it. For example:

• червоний/синій нероба (if you're talking about a man);
• червона/синя нероба (if you're talking about a woman).

However, if a noun is a profession noun (e.g. директор "director"), then you usually always use masculine-ending adjectives with it, at least in formal speech:

• червоний/синій директор (irrespectively to whether you're talking about a man or woman).

P.S.: Sorry for choosing not-very-meaningful combinations of nouns and adjectives.

Answer 2

Just to notice to answer Sasha.

Do you remember my anwer here about ъ ant little about iotation vowels and ь? I asked, because those things changed [& Muscovizated] our currently orthography, spelling, and later and somewhere even sounding. I mean that hard and soft are not normal things which also can do misunderstand even native speaker.

When I noticed about non-normal thing I also mean that here are no difference betwen ending. Yeah! I will use й/ь + vowels instead one iotation letter (note, today ї represents mainly йі, but also йи) for to show result of pseudotransciption (pseudo, because only for iotation vowels, and ь instead apostrophe) for adjectives from зелен and синь:

Називний    зелений    зелена/йа    зелене/йе    зелені/йі
             синьий     синьа/йа     синье/йе     синьі/йі

Родовий    зеленого     зеленойі     зеленого      зелених
            синього      синьойі      синього       синьих

Давальний  зеленому      зеленій     зеленому      зеленим
            синьому       синьій      синьому       синьим

Знахідний   зелений    зелену/йу    зелене/йе    зелені/йі
             синьий     синьу/йу     синье/йе     синьі/йі
           зеленого                                зелених
            синього                                 синьих

Орудний     зеленим     зеленойу      зеленим     зеленими
             синьим      синьойу       синьим      синьими

Місцевий   зеленому      зеленій     зеленому      зелених
            синьому       синьій      синьому       синьих
            зеленім                   зеленім
             синьім                    синьім

As we can see, here are no difference. Good sourses on Ukrainian about those:

• Моргунюк — В. Українська мова і український правопис про повновартість українських фонем і та и / Виталь Моргунюк // Вісник Держ. ун-ту «Львівська політехніка». Серія «Проблеми української термінології» : матер. 6-ї Міжн. наук. конф. СловоСвіт 2000. – 2000. – № 402. – С. 41–45.
• Олекса Синявський — Норма української мови

Maybe мій (and similar, like твій) is very little out, but it is spesial and closer to pronoun then adjective. Anyway, more correct (мойому &c) forms also exist but not, of cource, in standart or official language.

Let look at next with interesting thing:

      вона
      мойа

      йейі,
[до]  нейі
    мойейі

       йій
     мойій

      йейі,
[про] нейі
    мойейі

      нейу
    мойейу

[на]   ній
     мойій

I already used more correct form… But whait! What? Here is єї instead її, how? Well, we already know from above that ї can be йі or йи, so we can see deformation from йе to йи, because here е is not under accent.

Of couse, today it is not used or writed, even native maybe doesn’t know about those things, but it can help to learn or better understand Ukrainian.