Using the suffixes ичный vs. ический

[upthera44]

Hi again all

Comments

[oryx_and_crake]

You are right that the meaning is different. However I cannot really formulate a pattern.

[wolk_off]

Практичный vs. практический is "pragmatic" vs. "practical," while экономичный vs. экономический is "something that helps saving" (экономить воду/энергию is "to preserve water/ energy \\ to save on water / energy") vs. "something that has to do with the economy." Never encountered "гипотетичный", though.

[spiritrc]

I've never met "гипотетичный" either, but it sounds like something full of hypotheses vs "гипотетический", which is plain hypothetical.

[wolk_off]

One can invent dozens of "sounds-like" hybrid words, which does not necessarily means those words exist in real life.

[mithrilian]

It seems that -ичный might be judgemental and -ический indicates belonging. I am not sure it's correct, just a feeling

экономичный - good thing, save resources, not squander them
экономический- to do with economics

этичный - to have good ethics. Этичный поступок, этичный человек.
этический - to do with ethics Этическая проблема.

практичный - a good quality to have. He is a practical man
практический - as opposed to theoretical. It's a practical lesson.

критичный - I am being critical towards you (Also, to be an indispensable thing to something. Это критично для нашего дела)
Критический - like critical thinking

Not all pairs are possible, however.

гипотетический - again, belongs to a hypothesis
However, I don't thing гипотетичный is a word.

Физический - yes, a word
физичный - not a word

However, it might well be used interchangeably in vernacular speech.

...just thought of another pair

The movie was advertised as historical, but it is not historical at all.

Фильм был заявлен как исторический, но он совсем не историчен.

[staring_frog]

Физичный is a valid word, used at least between physicists. Это физично is used when some explanation goes along with physics, нефизично means that something is a mere hypothetical construction. You can google some examples.

[mithrilian]

Thanks for the new knowledge! Is нефизично "maybe wrong" or merely "yet unproven"?

[staring_frog]

This is not about results, but about explanations. Like when a thunderstorm is treated as a phenomenon of atmospheric electricity this is a физичное explanation, a piece of mosaic to be inserted in the general picture. Wrath of Zeus is a нефизичное explanation. It is an extreme example of course, but there are some areas in which arguments about what is физично and what is not can be non-trivial.

[arashi_opera]

Oh, this stuff even I'm not sure about how to handle properly, and I'm a native speaker who had an "A" in Russian back at school. I believe all these are simply different words, that's all, and they are not interchangeable, neither are they synonymous. Лиричные (строки) vs. лирический (герой), динамичный (темп) vs. динамический (диапазон, IP).

The dictionary tells me such word pairs are called paronyms. Hell if I know what this is, google it. :)

[mithrilian]

Oh, cool, look at my comment, thanks for the additional pairs.

Лиричный - judgemental, subjective
лирический - a term in literature

Динамичный - something rather good
динамический - no subjective meaning, an objective term

[arashi_opera]

Динамичный means "active, fast-paced". Динамический - something with changing dynamics, transient.

Лиричный I'd translate as emotional, poetic.

[mithrilian]

Yes, but subjective-judgemental is possible only with динамичный и лиричный, it's not their only meanings, of course, but you can say that you approve or disapprove of something only with -ичный and never with -ический. I think.

[nof_nof]

easy way to find out is looking up in a special type of dictionaries - just google "словарь паронимов"

here are some of them:
http://www.speakrus.ru/dict/paronym.pdf (the classic book form edition)
or
http://paronymonline.ru, aimed at high school students, as they such word pairs tend to be included in tests

one more (seems to be based on several paronym dictionaries): http://ru-paronym.ru/

[upthera44]

wow, this is a fantastic resource, thank you!