Russian Sounds and Inflections

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Title Page

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Copyright Page

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Table of Contents

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pp. v-xix

Introduction

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pp. 1-5

This work is a practical reference guide to the sounds, internal structure, and grammatical forms of Russian inflected words, intended for both advanced students of the language and for prospective teachers of it. Alongside explicit structural descriptions of Russian inflectional categories...

Bibliography

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pp. 6-7

Abbreviations and Symbols

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pp. 8-

Acknowledgments

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pp. 9-

Diagrams of Vocal Articulation

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pp. 10-11

1. Phonemics

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pp. 13-33

PHONEMES are the sounds a native speaker of a language recognizes as belonging to his or her language, out of which words are composed. The crucial aspect of the concept is that phonemes are distinct one from another for purposes of distinguishing word-forms...

2. Orthography and Phonetics

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pp. 34-54

The thirty-three letters of the contemporary Russian cyrillic alphabet are, in order...

3. Morphophonemics and Technical Orthography

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pp. 55-88

MORPHOPHONEMICS is concerned with the description of phonemically relevant sound-changes taking place in a word in accordance with the word’s changing grammatical status. The main motive underlying morphophonemics is the desire to describe the relatedness...

4. Levels of Sound- and Word-Structure

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pp. 89-120

“History” in the ordinary sense of the word is a narrative of how things happened in the past, in a way that attempts to capture most significant details. In descriptive linguistics, history often means something more modest, that today’s state of affairs bears the imprint...

5. Preliminaries to Noun Declension

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pp. 121-144

Chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9 are devoted to the individual inflection-types of nouns (first, masculine second, neuter second, feminine and neuter third). Before looking at these patterns in detail, in this chapter we will take up a number of preliminary matters...

6. First-Declension Nouns

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pp. 145-156

By a noun of the first declension is meant a declined noun with Nsg. in -a {-a}. Most nouns of the first declension are feminine in gender, meaning that they take feminine adjective and past-tense verb agreement, and are referred to with the feminine...

7. Masculine Second-Declension Nouns

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pp. 157-177

The second declension consists of nouns of either masculine or neuter gender, as may be determined by whether one refers to the noun with óн (masculine) or oнó (neuter). Nouns of these respective genders differ primarily in the NA endings, masculine...

8. Neuter Second-Declension Nouns

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pp. 178-188

Basic neuter-gender second-declension endings are the same as those of the masculine second declension except for the NAsg., NApl., and Gpl. All neuter nouns (including neuter third-declension nouns) have identical NAsg. and identical NApl. The Gsg. is usually...

9. Third-Declension Nouns

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pp. 189-197

The third declension consists of nouns of the feminine кócть type (including also the single masculine third-declension noun пýть), and of the neuter ѝмя ѝмени type. These declensions are similar mainly in the singular...

10. Mobile Vowels in Noun Declension

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pp. 198-216

A mobile vowel (o, ё, е “transitional е”, occasionally и, uniquely я) can split the final two consonants of a noun stem before endings in plain or softening zero...

11. Survey of Nouns by Stress Pattern

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pp. 217-238

Where possible, at least one example of a stress pattern is given here for each major declensional type. Reviewing, the letter A refers to stem stress, B to end-stress, and C refers to a shifting pattern, whether in the sg. or pl. The first of two letters refers to stress in the singular...

12. Adjective Declension

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pp. 239-263

There is a single long-form adjective declension, differentiated, as are nouns, according to gender, number, and case. Different superficial subtypes depend on spelling rules. Spelling rules and stem-types for adjectives (plain, soft, velar, hushing...

13. Pronominal Adjective Declension

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pp. 264-271

The distinguishing formal characteristic of pronominal adjectives, also called adjectival pronouns, is that the endings of the N and A (i.e., the direct cases), in all genders and in both sg. and pl., are short and noun-like...

14. Personal Pronouns and Numerals

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pp. 272-278

The inflected forms of the personal pronouns follow no uniform pattern and so need to be listed individually. Forms displaying optional initial н- do so following prepositions. The Isg. forms given in parentheses are archaic...

15. The Present Tense and the Imperative

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pp. 279-314

FINITE VERB conjugation refers to verb inflection in the PRESENT, IMPERATIVE, and PAST. Because the present form of a perfective verb typically has future meaning, in technical discussions the present form is often referred to as the...

16. The Infinitive, Past Tense, and Verb-Stress Notation

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pp. 315-340

The infinitive is the usual form, or at least the first form, of verb citation in non-specialist dictionaries. The infinitive stem serves as the base for the past tense, for certain participles, and for the derived imperfective aspect...

17. The Verbal Base

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pp. 341-359

A verb form consists of the following constituent parts: (PREFIX) ROOT (POSSIBLE FORMANT(S)) ( SUFFIX) ENDING As a minimum a verb consists of a root plus an ending. However, the root of the verb may be, and usually is, extended by suffixes or formants. For...

18. Verb Inventory

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pp. 360-391

Here is a detailed examination of the Russian verb inventory, organized according to base-form categories (Chapter 17). For each verb chosen for illustration, the complete finite conjugation is given (present, imperative, past), followed where appropriate by a list of other representative verbs...

19. Participles and Gerunds

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pp. 392-412

A PARTICIPLE is a fully declinable adjective derived from a verb. A GERUND, also sometimes called a verbal adverb, is a noninflected verbal form without person or tense markers, which can take the place of an inflected verb form in a subordinate clause, provided the subject is the same...

20. The Morphology of Aspect

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pp. 413-445

ASPECT in general is a verbal category which refers to whether a situation described by the verb is a state or an action; and, if an action, how it unfolds: progressively, completively, habitually, or inherently. Russian grammatical aspect refers to whether a verb is...

Glossary of Terms

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pp. 447-464

Nouns Cited in Chapters 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

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pp. 465-476

Adjectives Cited in Chapter 12

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pp. 477-481

Verbs Cites in Chapters 15, 16, 17, 18

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pp. 482-491

Subject Index

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pp. 493-503

Cover

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