Quote Originally Posted by iCake View Post
The short adjectives are used only if there is no noun to the adjective
"Эта женщина красива"? There's certanly a noun for the adjective, but you still can use the short form (it's even preferable here).
"Хороша была Танюша, краше не было в селе..." (С. Есенин)

So it's not a rule. But noun going after a short adjective is, for sure, a very uncommon construction.



Quote Originally Posted by iCake View Post
or an adjective just doesn't have the short form (like маленький).
"Мал"?
"Мал золотник, да дорог" (поговорка)

But you made the right point.

For example, if you want to express temperature of an object

раскалённый - раскалён;
горячий - горяч;
тёплый - ??? (there's no such word "тёпл", I guess);
холодный - холоден;
ледяной - ??? ("леден"? Опять сомневаюсь, что есть такое слово).

So, 3 adjective do have short form, and 2 others - don't. Why is it so? I guess, people found short forms for these adjective sounding bad and never used them. So they didn't made their way into the language. May be there were some other reasons.

Usage of short forms makes you language more colorful but unless you know exactly how would it change the phrase - you should probably avoid it.

So, the rule is: if you're not sure, that short form of an adjective is needed - don't use it. There's high chance to make an error.